Chimney Repairs · Ollerton NG22
Chimney Repairs In Ollerton
Which Ollerton is your chimney in, the old village or the pit town?
Repointing, lead flashing, flaunching and capping for Old Ollerton's period stacks and New Ollerton's colliery houses
Ollerton gives a chimney two very different starting points. In Old Ollerton, close to the Maun and the Hop Pole, the stacks are old brick laid in lime, inside a conservation area where the council expects repairs to match. Across the river, New Ollerton went up for the Butterley Company's pit from 1923, and on Forest Road, Whinney Lane and the streets around St Paulinus the semis still carry the stacks built for coal fires nobody lights any more. Most chimney repairs in Ollerton come down to the same few faults on either side: perished pointing, a cracked crown, tired flashing and a pot left open to the rain. The way you fix them is what differs.
Free chimney repairs survey in Ollerton
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 Ollerton surveys
Itemised fixed prices
about 17 minutes from base
Who does the work
The chimney gets done right, however long it takes
Chris has been roofing since he was a teenager and has over 20 years in the trade behind him. He's local, and a Georgian stack that wants lime pointing or a colliery chimney with a failed lead apron is familiar ground. Knowing which repair suits which stack is a lot of what those years are worth.
He won't leave a roof until it's watertight, and some days that means working very late. His team have picked up the same attitude. They work hard, they're proud to work for a business that cares more about the customer than money or short hours, and they do it properly whether anybody's watching or not.
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
What a failing Ollerton chimney usually looks like
Old village or colliery semi, the symptoms tend to be the same. Here's how to read them and what they usually point to.
Hard grey pointing on a soft, crumbling old stack
A past repair in strong cement on brick that needed lime. The cement stays put while the brick around it breaks down, and we see it often on period stacks.
Damp on the chimney breast in a back bedroom
Rain getting down an open flue, or through a crown that has cracked. On a colliery house that stopped burning coal decades ago, the stack has no warmth to dry it out.
Lead around the base lifting or split
Old lead flashing that has worked loose from the joints. Water then runs behind it onto the timbers next to the stack.
A pot that rocks or sits at an angle
The flaunching holding it has broken up. Caught early it's a small job; left too long, the pot can come down.
How we repair chimneys on both sides of Ollerton
Lime on the Georgian stacks
Old Ollerton's brick needs a soft mortar that lets moisture out. We point in lime there and won't put hard cement on it.
Lead dressed by hand
Aprons, soakers and back gutters are cut and dressed to suit each stack, then wedged into raked joints. That's what the conservation area expects, and it lasts.
Colliery stacks made weathertight
On the 1920s semis we repoint, rebuild the crown and fit a vented cap where the flue's unused, so the brickwork can dry out.
Matched brick where it's needed
If a few bricks have blown on a period stack, we find reclaimed or close-matched replacements instead of something bright and new.
Shared stacks handled fairly
Many semis share a chimney with next door. We survey the whole stack and give you a written report you can show your neighbour.
Consent flagged before work
With eleven listed buildings in Old Ollerton, we'll tell you at survey stage if anything you've asked for needs the council's approval.
From coaching village to coal town, and the chimneys in between
Ollerton was in Domesday and spent centuries as a village where roads crossed the Maun. Ollerton Hall went up around 1700, the Hop Pole followed in the 18th century, and the old core still has a roofline of red pantiles with brick stacks rising through them. Then the Butterley Company arrived. The Derbyshire ironmasters sank the colliery between 1923 and 1925 and built roughly 932 houses east of the river by the Second World War, from the big semis on Savile Row to the hipped and gabled pairs near St Paulinus. Every one of those homes was built around a coal fire. The pit closed in 1994, its site is now Sherwood Energy Village, and the stacks have been sitting cold ever since. Plenty of those houses have since gained flat-roofed kitchens and bathrooms at the back, which tend to want attention around the same time as the chimney.
"A lot of the Ollerton chimney calls we get come from people who stopped using the fire years ago and assumed the stack could be forgotten about."
From chimney repairs enquiries Roof Repairs Mansfield handles in Ollerton
How we repair a chimney in Ollerton
Free survey, outside and in
We check every face of the stack, the pots, crown and lead, then go into the loft to look for damp brick or stained timbers beside it.
Photos so you can see it
You'll get pictures of each problem we found, including the faces you can't see from the street, so you know what you're paying for.
A written, itemised price
Pointing, crown, lead and caps are each priced separately, and any scaffold or access cost is listed on its own line.
Work carried out as quoted
We do what's on the quote, in lime or a standard mix depending on the stack, photograph the finished work and take every scrap of waste away.
Guaranteed for 10 years
Once the chimney is finished, you receive our written 10 year 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
Before you hire anyone for an Ollerton chimney
These three questions will quickly tell you whether a roofer understands the difference between the two halves of the town.
Do you know if my house is in the conservation area?
A roofer working in Old Ollerton should know the boundary and what it means for materials. If they shrug, expect a repair that doesn't match.
Lead or flashing tape?
Lead outlasts the alternatives and suits period houses. If tape is offered, ask why, and whether it's going on a building where the look matters.
What about the neighbour's half?
On a shared stack, any structural work affects both houses. A good roofer raises that before starting, not halfway through.
Traditional Lead Or Flexible Flashing Tape Around The Stack?
Both are sold as chimney flashing. On Ollerton's houses, one is nearly always the better buy, and here's why.
| Comparison point | Code lead flashing | Flexible flashing tape |
|---|---|---|
| Lifespan | Decades when dressed and fixed properly. | Much shorter, and it can lift as the adhesive ages. |
| How it's fixed | Wedged into raked-out mortar joints. | Stuck to the brick and tile surface. |
| Old Ollerton | The traditional material, at home on period stacks. | Looks out of place in a conservation area. |
| Upfront cost | Costs more in material and skill. | Cheaper and quicker to fit. |
| Best use | Permanent flashing on any stack. | A short-term emergency seal. |
| If it fails | Can usually be re-dressed and rewedged. | Has to come off and be replaced. |
What chimney repairs in Ollerton tend to cost
Rebedding pots and a new crown is usually a few hundred pounds, while a full repoint with new lead mostly lands in the low four figures. These are the factors that move it.
Three storeys in Old Ollerton
Taller frontages around the Hop Pole and the crossroads need scaffold to reach the stack, and that's often the biggest single cost.
Semis on Forest Road and Whinney Lane
Two-storey colliery houses in New Ollerton can often be reached with a ladder or tower, which keeps access costs down. A shared stack can split the bill if the neighbour joins in.
Lime and matched materials
Lime pointing and reclaimed brick for the conservation area take more care, and cost a little more than a standard repair.
How many pots need capping
Each unused flue gets its own vented cap, so a stack with four pots costs more to cap than one with two.
Chimney repair questions from Ollerton
Who handles planning for chimney work in Ollerton?
Newark & Sherwood District Council. Old Ollerton's historic core by the Maun is in the Ollerton Conservation Area, designated in 1972, and there are eleven listed buildings inside it. There's no Article 4 direction, so like-for-like repairs on an unlisted house are normally fine. Taking a stack down in the conservation area, or doing any work on a listed building, should go past the district council first. New Ollerton sits outside the conservation area.
Why do New Ollerton chimneys get so damp?
They were built in the twenties for houses heated by coal, and a fire kept the brickwork warm and dry. Since the pit closed and the fires went out, rain sits in the stack and nothing drives it out. Open pots, perished pointing and cracked crowns let more in. A vented cap, fresh pointing and a sound crown let the stack dry out.
Can you repoint an Old Ollerton chimney in lime?
Yes, and on a Georgian stack that's what we'd recommend. Lime is softer than the brick, so moisture escapes through the joints rather than the brick faces. If an earlier repair used hard cement, we can rake it out and repoint in lime.
Should I keep the chimney if I never use the fire?
That's up to you. Keeping it means capping and maintaining it, which is usually the cheaper choice now and keeps the roofline intact. On a shared stack or in the conservation area, taking it down is more involved. We'll lay out both options after the survey.
Is flashing tape good enough around my chimney?
As a temporary seal after storm damage, perhaps. As a permanent fix, no. Lead dressed into the joints lasts far longer, and in Old Ollerton it's what suits the house. We'll only use tape to stop water getting in until the proper repair is done.
What to do in Ollerton
Ollerton sits among the old Dukeries estates. Three of them are close enough for a Saturday afternoon.
Ollerton Watermill
The listed brick watermill on the Maun was still producing flour commercially until 1984, and was restored in the early 1990s. A loop round the old village takes in the mill, the Hop Pole and St Giles' church.
Find it on Google Maps : Ollerton Watermill
Rufford Abbey Country Park
Just south along the A614, the remains of a 12th-century Cistercian abbey stand joined to the Savile family's later country house, with a lake, gardens and woodland around them.
Find it on Google Maps : Rufford Abbey Country Park
Thoresby Courtyard and Gallery
A short drive north, Thoresby's Grade II listed 18th-century stables now hold independent shops, a coffee shop and a gallery with the Pierrepont collection. Parking is free, but check opening times.
Find it on Google Maps : Thoresby Courtyard and GalleryFinding Ollerton
Ollerton is around 17 minutes from our yard in Mansfield. Planning across both Old and New Ollerton is Newark & Sherwood District Council's job.
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
Our chimney work covers the whole of the Mansfield area. Choose a town below to see its own page.
Get a free chimney survey in Ollerton
Let us know which part of Ollerton you're in and what's bothering you about the stack. We'll check it inside and out, send photos and give you one written price. If it's in the conservation area, we'll say what the council is likely to want.