Chimney work is priced differently from the rest of a roof. A stack stands on its own, often at the highest point of the house, and the cost of a repair depends less on the size of the job than on how much of the stack is involved and how hard it is to get to. Patching a strip of lead is a small job. Taking a leaning stack down to roof level and building it back is a different order of work altogether.
The figures below are national typical ranges from published cost guides, named and dated each time. They are not Supreme Roofing prices, and they cannot account for your stack, your access or your stone. Once we have surveyed, the quote we write covers scaffold, repair, materials, labour and clearance. Once you have read this page, our guide to how long a chimney repair takes covers the other half of planning, and the chimney repairs page shows the whole service.
What moves a chimney quote up or down
Four things decide most of a chimney price, and none of them is the chimney pot.
The fault itself
Mortar that has washed out of the joints is a repointing job. A lead strip that has lifted is a flashing job. A stack that has cracked right through, or is leaning, is a rebuild. Each is priced on its own scale, which is why one chimney can attract three very different quotes before anyone has looked at it.
Height and number of flues
A short, single-flue stack on a bungalow has a small face to work on. A tall stack with several pots has more mortar to rake, more flaunching to renew and a bigger platform to build. Labour grows faster than the surface area, because every metre of height adds to the climbing, the carrying and the safety measures.
Material
Brick, stone and rendered stacks are repaired in different ways. A Cotswold limestone stack needs lime mortar and stone that matches, which is slower and costs more than a plain brick repoint. Our guide to stone chimneys in Stroud explains why the mortar choice is not a place to save money.
Access
The last factor is the one most people forget. Getting to a stack means a scaffold tower, a roof ladder system or a full scaffold, and the cost of that platform can rival the cost of the repair itself on a small job. We come back to it in its own section below.
When two quotes for the same chimney differ widely, compare what each covers, not just the totals. Check whether both include scaffold, whether both repoint the full stack or only the worst face, and whether the lead is included.
Repointing a chimney: ranges by house type
To repoint a stack is to rake the crumbling mortar out of the joints and fill them afresh, so the brickwork sheds rain rather than soaking it up. Our chimney repointing guide describes the method. On price, MyBuilder's chimney repair cost guide (updated August 2026) averages about £750, across a spread of £500 to £2,000. It also splits the work by house type.
| House type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Bungalow | £200 to £700 |
| Semi-detached, side chimney | £600 to £900 |
| Semi-detached, central chimney | £900 to £1,500 |
| Detached | £700 to £900 |
Why the central stack costs more
A central stack on a semi-detached house stands in the middle of the roof, so there is more roof to cross and more ground to protect before anyone reaches the stack. Often it is shared with the neighbour, which can bring more flues and more faces to repoint. A side chimney can usually be reached from the gable end, which keeps the scaffold simpler.
What the average hides
An average of about £750 says nothing about stone. The guide is a national one and does not separate lime-and-stone work from brick, and a stone stack with soft joints can sit above the middle of the range. We would rather flag that than let a national average stand in for your house.
Flashing and flaunching: the small repairs that stop leaks
Flashing is the sheet lead that wraps the base of a stack, tucked into its joints and lapped over the slates or tiles beside it. It is the part of a stack that most often lets water in, and its price depends on how much of it has to come off. The cost guides give two layers of detail.
Patch or replace
MyBuilder puts a flashing repair at £250 to £1,200. MyJobQuote's leadwork guide (last updated 22 September 2026) is more specific: a patch to chimney flashing at £150 to £250, and a full replacement averaging about £570, split into £350 to £460 without scaffold and £700 to £920 with it. The gap between those last two figures is the scaffold, which shows how much of a small job can be access.
Lead by the metre
Checkatrade's repair guide, updated October 2026, gives lead flashing repairs at £50 to £70 per metre, and stepped flashing (lead cut in steps to follow a pitched roof beside the stack) at £80 to £120 per metre. Those figures are for Code 5 lead and exclude VAT. Lead codes are the weight classes of sheet lead, and Leadworx calls Code 4 the standard pick for everyday flashing. We explain the choice in our guide to replacing chimney flashing.
Flaunching
Flaunching is the sloped mortar fillet where the pots sit on top of the stack, shaped so that rain runs away from the flues. No separate national figure is published for it, so we price it on survey, as part of the same visit. It is usually done at the same time as the repointing, because the scaffold is already up. Our chimney flaunching guide shows what is involved.
Correctly fitted lead has a very long working life. MyJobQuote says flashing can last for over 80 years, more for higher codes, which is why a lead repair is worth doing properly once.
Rebuilding a stack: where the large numbers come from
MyBuilder's guide puts a stack rebuild at £2,000 to £10,000 or more, and the open-ended top of that range is deliberate. Rebuilds vary enormously because nothing about them is standard.
What a rebuild includes
The stack is taken down, usually to the point where it is still sound, and rebuilt in matching material with new flaunching, new pots or the old ones refitted, and new flashing at the base. Materials, labour, scaffold, disposal of the old brick or stone and making good around the stack all go into the total. With stone, add the cost of sourcing stone that matches, and lime mortar rather than a cement mix.
What pushes a rebuild to the top of the range
A tall stack with several flues. A stack that has been rendered and must be taken back to its structure. A stone stack on a listed house, where consent is needed before work starts. A stack that rises from a gable wall so the scaffold has to come from the ground rather than the roof. A narrow lane that stops materials being delivered close to the house.
Rebuild or repair
When a stack is leaning, bulging or loose across its width, repointing it is money wasted, because the joints are not the problem. Our guide on when a chimney stack needs rebuilding sets out the signs. Compare the cost of a rebuild with the cost of a repair that fails in a few years and then has to be followed by a rebuild anyway. Where the survey finds the stack sound, the quote covers only the smaller job.
Consent matters more than price on some stacks. Planning matters here. A listed house or one in a conservation area should be raised with Stroud District Council's planning team before a rebuild or removal is agreed.
Scaffold and access on Stroud's steep streets
Stroud is built on hillsides, and many roads climb steeply from the valley floor. A house on a terrace or a narrow lane may have no flat ground beside it, no front space for a scaffold tower and no room for a delivery lorry to stop. Each of those changes the way a stack is reached, and each is a cost we put in the quote during the survey rather than raise on the day.
What the cost guides say
The sourced scaffold figures are for a full re-roof, not a chimney alone. MyBuilder (updated August 2026) gives about £1,125, and Checkatrade (October 2026) gives £700 to £1,300. A single stack usually needs a smaller structure, but the figures show how scaffold can account for a large part of any roofing quote. Chimney scaffold is priced on survey because it depends on the house, the stack and the street. Our page on scaffolding for chimney work explains the options.
When the scaffold is shared
On a terrace, a shared stack straddles two roofs, and the neighbour has to agree to access. Our guide to the shared chimney stack looks at who pays and who decides. That conversation is better had before the quote, because it can alter both the scaffold and the repair.
Narrow lanes and steep gardens
If a lorry cannot get close, new materials go up by hand, and the old brick and stone come back down by the same route. Waste removal is part of the quote, and so is the time spent moving materials. On a steep garden the scaffold base needs levelling, which is another line. All of it is visible in the written quote, because the point of the survey is to see these things.
How a written chimney quote is built
A national range is a starting point. It helps you tell whether a quote is sensible, but only a survey can price your chimney. We visit, photograph the stack and the flashing from the scaffold position or by close inspection, and look at the mortar, the flaunching, the lead, the pots and the roof around them. Photographs of your own roof from the survey come with it.
The lines you should see
A chimney quote should cover the scaffold or access, the repair itself (repointing, flashing, flaunching, rebuild), the materials, the labour, rubbish removal and making good. If a quote gives one number with no description, ask what the work includes.
VAT
Expect VAT at the standard rate on this work; the quote shows it. Checkatrade's figures above exclude it, while others do not say, which is another reason to compare like with like.
Like for like, and the guarantee
On an older house, stone stays stone and brick stays brick, with mortar matched to the original. The work carries our 10-year workmanship guarantee, in writing. When we finish, the debris is swept up and carried away.
If the survey finds a leak at the stack, we make it safe first. Our guide to why chimneys leak traces where the water gets in, which often settles whether the answer is a patch or a larger repair. Send us photographs, call 01453 933613 or message us on WhatsApp, and we will arrange the survey.