Foundation, brick and chimney work in Hoopeston, Illinois

Hoopeston is home base. It sits where Route 1 and Route 9 cross at the north end of Vermilion County, a few miles from the Indiana line, and it grew up as a railroad and canning town in the middle of some of the best sweet corn ground in the state. Every summer the National Sweetcorn Festival fills McFerren Park.

When you call the number on this site, you get Brian, and he is local.

Drive the streets between Main Street and McFerren Park and you are looking at a town full of older houses. Many of them were built when a foundation meant stone or soft brick laid in lime mortar. Some had a basement dug under part of the house and a crawl space under the rest. Plenty have had additions put on over the years, each on its own foundation.

Those foundations have done their job for a very long time. But mortar washes out, Hoopeston's heavy soil stays wet against the walls every spring, and the frost pushes on them every winter. When a wall has lost its mortar and started to bow, Brian takes it out and replaces it with modern materials. When it can be saved, he repairs it.

• Stone and brick foundations under older homes
• Basements and crawl spaces under the same house
• Additions on their own small foundations
• Foundation walls bowing in on the low side of the lot

Hoopeston's older houses carry a lot of brick chimneys, many of them no longer used for anything, and almost all of them taking the worst of the weather. Downtown has blocks of older brick buildings. On both, the work is the same: tuckpoint the joints before they let water in, replace brick that has spalled or worked loose, and fix the top of the chimney before it comes apart.

Because this is old work, the mortar needs to suit old brick. Hard modern mortar on soft Hoopeston brick causes more damage than it fixes.

The ground around Hoopeston is about as flat as it gets, and the soil holds water. That means roof water that dumps at a corner of the house does not run off. It soaks in right against the foundation. A lot of wet basement corners and bowing walls in town trace back to one downspout. Before any foundation or brick repair, it is worth looking at where the water goes, and Brian will.

Text Brian a few photos and your street. For foundations, each wall from inside plus the outside showing the downspouts. For brick or a chimney, a wide photo and a close one. Call or text (217) 549-2230, or email familymansmith75@gmail.com.

• McFerren ParkCity park with a pond, pool and ball field, home of the National Sweetcorn Festival.
• Hoopeston Public LibraryPublic library on North 4th Street.
• Union ParkPark on East McNeil Avenue.
• Hoopeston Area High SchoolHigh school on East Orange Street.
• Floral Hill CemeteryCemetery on the north side of town.