Chimney Repairs · Forest Town NG19
Chimney Repairs In Forest Town
Is your chimney the only one on the row that's started dropping mortar?
Stack repointing, flaunching, lead and capping for the Avenues terraces and the later houses around Forest Town
Chimney repairs in Forest Town are rarely about one house. The Bolsover Colliery Company put up roughly 320 homes here from 1905, mostly in long terraces either side of the Avenues, and the stacks went up with everything else. So the mortar, the flaunching and the lead along a row have all had the same century of wear, and plenty of those chimneys are shared between two households as well. When yours starts shedding bits onto the roof, look along the street. The stacks either side are often telling the same story. We'll survey yours properly and tell you whether it's a tidy-up or something bigger.
Free chimney repairs survey in Forest Town
Leave your details and we'll ring you back to arrange a survey. The visit is free, you're under no obligation once we've been, and a roof that doesn't need work gets called a roof that doesn't need work.
Fully insured
Free Forest Town surveys
Itemised fixed prices
5 minutes from base
Who does the work
Why Chris won't leave a chimney half done
The roofing at Roof Repairs Mansfield is run by Chris, who's local and has been in the trade since he was a teenager. More than 20 years on, he still runs every job the same way: efficiently, properly, and without the kind of shortcut the next owner ends up finding.
A chimney that's been opened up is made watertight before the team leaves, even if that means a very long day. Chris's crew work hard and are proud to be part of a business that cares about the customer more than money or short hours. On rows of shared, same-age stacks like the ones in the Avenues, that care is what stops a repair turning into next door's problem.
1,000+
Repairs carried out
10 years
Workmanship guarantee, on paper
Free
Surveys, quotes and honest bad news
No upselling
A patch that will hold gets recommended as a patch
Four chimney warnings on Forest Town houses
On a street where every stack is the same age, one of these on yours is a fair guide to what's coming for the neighbours too.
A stack that's out of line with the rest of the row
Because a terrace's chimneys were built together, a lean stands out. It can be old mining settlement, since Forest Town sits over workings that ran until 1988, or one face decaying faster after decades of coal smoke. Someone should get up and look at it before it is either written off or ignored.
Flaunching and ridge mortar crumbling together
The original mortars here went on in the same few years, so the crown of the stack and the ridge beside it often give up at once. One set of access can usually sort both.
Brown stains on the chimney breast wallpaper
Rain coming down an uncapped flue dissolves old soot and carries it through the plaster. A vented cap usually puts a stop to it.
Water marks in the loft around the base of the stack
Either the lead has pulled out of its joint or the mortar above it has washed away. On a shared stack, it's worth finding out whether the water is coming in on your side or next door's.
What our chimney work looks like on a Forest Town terrace
Both sides of a shared stack surveyed
We look at the whole chimney, not just your half, and give you photos you can show next door.
Joint quotes for neighbours
If the house next door wants its side done as well, we can price both together so the cost of access is split.
Settlement read for what it is
An old, stable lean gets worked with. Anything that looks recent is flagged as a structural question before we quote a penny.
Mortar that suits century-old brick
The first Avenues houses are well over a hundred years old, so we point with a mix soft enough to protect the brick, not hard cement that makes the faces pop.
Ridge and stack in one visit
When the flaunching and the ridge next to it have both gone, we'll say so. Doing both while the access is up saves paying for a second set-up.
Caps that let the flue breathe
Most of these stacks no longer serve a working fire. A disused flue gets a vented cap, so the chimney dries out instead of soaking up rain.
A model village's chimneys, all the same age
When the Bolsover Colliery Company planned Forest Town, it already had New Bolsover and Creswell behind it and knew what a pit village needed: decent houses, a school, shops, a Co-op on Main Avenue and, by 1908, a Workmen's Institute. Every one of those houses was heated by coal, and the stacks were built to keep fires burning through the winter. Coal fires are mostly a memory now, and a cold stack doesn't dry out the way a working one did. Add a hundred-odd years of identical wear and you get rows of chimneys whose problems arrive in step. The village was also built over the seams it mined, so a stack that looks out of true might be settlement rather than decay. While someone's up there, the felted roofs on Forest Town's rear extensions are worth a look too.
"In Forest Town, the person ringing about their chimney quite often mentions that next door's has started shedding mortar as well."
From chimney repairs enquiries Roof Repairs Mansfield handles in Forest Town
How a Forest Town chimney repair runs
Survey from the street and the loft
We look along the row first to compare your stack with the neighbours', then get up close to all four faces and check the loft for damp around the breast.
Photos you can share
You get photos of the stack, the flaunching and the flashing. On a shared chimney they're handy for showing next door what's going on.
A single written, itemised price
Each repair is listed separately, with scaffold or other access on its own line. If a neighbour wants their side priced, they get a quote of their own.
Repairs carried out as agreed
We rake out and repoint, rebed the pots, renew the lead and fit any cap, exactly as the quote says.
Photos, a tidy-up and the 10 year guarantee
We photograph the finished chimney, clear away the old mortar and debris, and leave you a 10 year written workmanship guarantee.
Ten years, in writing, before we leave the drive
Every roofer in Nottinghamshire will tell you their work is guaranteed. Ask to see the paper and the conversation often changes. Ours doesn't: work booked through Roof Repairs Mansfield carries a 10 year workmanship guarantee as a physical document, dated, signed and handed over with the completion photos - not a line in an email you'll never find again. Materials sit on top of that with their manufacturers' own cover, which differs product to product, so your paperwork names the cover that actually applies to your job.
A guarantee that long only makes commercial sense if repairs are done in a way that doesn't invite a return visit. Around Mansfield that means respecting what the housing actually is: coverings and fixings from the colliery era that fail as systems, not as single tiles, and mortar that has been quietly powdering since the pits shut. So failed material gets stripped back to something sound before new goes on, mortar gets matched to the age of the brick, and anything we can't make right on the day gets said out loud rather than covered over.
The blunt version: if water we were paid to stop finds its way back through our work inside 10 years, we return and put it right at our own cost. That promise has to be cheap to honour - and it is, because of how the work gets done the first time.
10 yrs
Written workmanship cover
1,000+
Repairs carried out
Insured
Public liability held
Named
Manufacturer cover per job
Three things to check before anyone touches your Forest Town stack
These help you compare quotes fairly, especially when the chimney is shared with next door.
Has the whole stack been looked at?
On a shared chimney the worst face may be on your neighbour's side. A quote based on half the stack can miss whatever is actually letting water in.
Is the lean old or new?
In a village built over coal workings, a roofer should be able to explain whether a lean looks settled or active, and what they'd do if it's the second.
What happens to the flue?
If the chimney isn't used, the quote should say how it'll be capped and ventilated. Pointing the outside while the flue stays open to rain only fixes half the problem.
Repair Your Half Or Do The Whole Shared Stack?
Lots of Forest Town chimneys serve two houses. You can repair your own side, or you and your neighbour can do the whole stack together. Here's how the two compare.
| Comparison point | Whole stack, done jointly | Your half only |
|---|---|---|
| Access | One scaffold, shared between two households | You pay for the access alone |
| Keeping water out | Every face sealed, so damp can't track across | A bad face on next door's side can still let water into the stack |
| Agreement | Your neighbour has to agree and share the bill | Routine repairs on your side need nobody's sign-off |
| Structural work | Rebuilds or removal can go ahead once consent is in place | Anything structural still needs next door's agreement under the Party Wall Act |
| The finish | Matching mortar and lead right round the stack | The two halves can weather differently |
What moves the price of chimney repairs in Forest Town
Pointing, flaunching, lead and caps are each priced separately, so you can see what you're paying for. Four things make the biggest difference here.
Terrace access in the Avenues
Scaffold on the Avenues terraces often has to cross a neighbour's frontage, which needs their agreement and some planning before a start date is fixed.
Sharing the cost
If the houses either side want their stacks done while the scaffold is up, each household's share of the access comes down.
Bungalows and lower roofs
Further out, towards Clipstone Road West, the bungalows and later houses tend to have lower chimneys that are easier to reach, which keeps access costs down.
What the survey turns up
A lean from settlement, or decay running deeper into the stack than it looked, can change the job. You'll hear about it before anything is added.
Forest Town chimney questions
Do I need planning permission to remove a chimney in Forest Town?
Usually not. Forest Town comes under Mansfield District Council and isn't one of the district's eleven conservation areas, so repairs need no permission and taking a stack down is normally permitted development. The original streets are recorded in the Nottinghamshire Historic Environment Record as the Forest Town Workers Village. That isn't a planning restriction, but it's a good reason to match materials. On a shared chimney, removal also needs your neighbour's agreement under the Party Wall Act.
Is my chimney leaning because of mining under Forest Town?
Sometimes. The village sits over the workings of Mansfield Colliery, which closed in 1988, and tall, narrow stacks show any old movement in a house before anything else does. Just as often, though, the stack has done it to itself, with years of coal smoke wearing one face faster than the other. We'll tell you which it looks like. If ground movement looks recent, subsidence claims go through the Mining Remediation Authority.
Our Forest Town terrace shares a stack with next door, and they won't pay. What can we do?
You can still repoint, reflaunch and flash your own side without their agreement. We'd survey the whole chimney and give you a written report with photos, which is often enough to change a neighbour's mind. If they still say no, your side can be made sound on its own, though it won't protect you from a failing face on theirs.
Why does my chimney breast smell of soot after rain?
Rain coming down an open flue wets the old soot deposits inside the stack, and the smell comes through into the room. A vented cap keeps the rain out while letting air move, and it's a quick job to fit.
Should I rebuild my chimney or just repair it?
Most stacks only need the top and the joints sorting. A rebuild is for a chimney that's leaning badly, loose, or decayed deep into the brickwork. If yours falls into that group, we'll show you the evidence in photos rather than just telling you.
What to do in Forest Town
Three spots on the edge of Forest Town worth a walk on a day off.
Spa Ponds Nature Reserve
Medieval fish ponds, believed to go back to Edward II's reign, looked after by the volunteer Forest Town Nature Conservation Group, who bought the site in 2014. Subsidence in 1983 reshaped the original two ponds into four.
Find it on Google Maps : Spa Ponds Nature Reserve
Maun Valley Park
Seventeen hectares along the River Maun, with old oaks, water meadows and red Sherwood sandstone in the banks. It's the district's largest local nature reserve, and the southern half has paths suitable for wheelchairs.
Find it on Google Maps : Maun Valley Park
Oak Tree Heath
A pocket of lowland heath squeezed between housing and a supermarket, protected as an SSSI since 1989. It's one of the best places in the county to spot common lizards.
Find it on Google Maps : Oak Tree HeathFinding Forest Town
Forest Town is about five minutes from our Sandy Lane yard, and the planning authority is Mansfield District Council.
Word from around the town
What homeowners across the Mansfield patch made of the work, in their own words.
"The back bedroom ceiling had a mark that came and went for two years and I'd stopped even noticing it. When Babet hit it turned into a proper leak overnight. They came out two days later, found a split flashing round the chimney - nowhere near where the stain was - and had it done in a morning. Showed me photos of the fault before and after. The quote and the invoice were the same number, which I'm told is rarer than it should be."
"Ours is one of the old colliery houses and the ridge had been shedding bits of mortar onto the path for months. I expected to be told we needed a new roof - the bloke next door had been quoted for exactly that by someone else. Instead they rebedded the ridge, refixed four tiles and told me the rest of the roof was fine for years yet. Charged a fraction of what I'd braced myself for."
"Water was streaming down the front of the house whenever it rained hard and I assumed the worst about the roof. Turned out the gutter had lost its fall and was tipping everything over the edge in one spot. They reset the brackets, sorted a joint, checked the gully at the bottom and were gone within a couple of hours. Also pointed out a slate that wants watching next year rather than fixing now - appreciated that."
"Bought a 1900s terrace near the town centre and the survey flagged the chimney. Two other firms quoted to take it down entirely. These lads went up, told me the stack itself was sound and it just needed repointing with the right mortar, new flaunching and a cap on the dead flue. Three years on the chimney breast is bone dry. Kept the chimney, saved about two grand."
"The extension roof had ponded for years and every couple of winters someone would patch it and it would come back. They were the first to explain the actual problem - no fall on the deck - and quoted to sort that rather than just laying another layer of felt over it. New rubber roof, water actually runs off it now. You get told the truth, which is worth paying for on its own."
Been a customer?
A short review is the most useful thing you can give a local firm - it tells the next household in Mansfield with a dripping ceiling who they can trust with it.
Areas we cover
Forest Town is one stop on a wider patch around Mansfield. Find your own town or village in the list below.
Have your Forest Town chimney checked for free
We'll survey the whole stack, show you photos and give you one written price. If next door wants theirs looked at, we can do both on the same visit.