Outside of Christmas mantles, chimneys don’t get a lot of love in Houston. Some time (after today’s eclipse) head outside and take a look at your chimney and the pipe jacks sticking out of your roof. Are they old and ugly looking? That may mean dirt, which is no big deal, or it may mean rust, which is a very big deal!
Chimneys have metal pieces that need to resist heat, smoke, wind, and rain. This can wear and tear on the materials, causing them to degrade over time. Rusty chimneys can let in water, which leaks most often into attics or inside drywall. These are spaces that are not designed to handle water and are easily destroyed by the presence of persistent water.
Most systems outside the home are designed to either resist water or to manage it. Chimneys are a combination of both resisting and managing. The enemy is water remaining in place.
If you have brick outside, you’ll see weeping holes near the bottom. This allows water that gets behind the brick to easily make its way out and not cause any damage. A friend of mine didn’t realize this and put caulk in all of those holes. He thought he was preventing bugs from getting into his house, but in reality water couldn’t get out. Thankfully, the weeping holes he plugged were on the other side of the garage. Soon he noticed wet spots that never seemed to dry appearing on his garage drywall. Then, while poking at it, his finger when straight through the dry, revealing “organic growth” everywhere inside his walls.
Your shingles manage water. Behind them are layers of underlayment that pushes water away from the plywood decking. There is drip edge and ice and water shields that keep the water moving off the roof and onto the ground or into the gutters. The angles, the slopes, the materials are all meant to manage the water away from the house and keep it moving.
Now think about your chimney. The chimney is a giant hole and tube that runs from the roof outside all the way down through your attic, inside your walls, to the family room with the fireplace. Getting your chimney cleaned is key to a healthy home. We had our chimney inspected, cleaned, sealed, and painted the month we moved in because my wife loves the romance of a fireplace in the winter. I guess she forgot Winter in Houston is only 2 weeks in February.
But what about the parts of the chimney you don’t see up on the roof?
Most chimneys have a flue made of brick. At the roof level, there is metal flashing that goes under the shingles and up a few inches of the brickwork to keep flowing water out. At the top of the chimney is the painted metal “crown cap”, there is the “cap” that keeps rain out, and there is the “spark arrestor” metal mesh that prevents embers from flying out with the hot air currents.
Flashing, crown cap, cap, and spark arrestor, you need to make sure they are all in working order and are rust-free.
The simple solution: Have one of our roofers climb up and make a visual inspection. If significant damage is found on certain parts, they will have to be replaced, but that is rare. Most of the time, the items are merely worn and have a few elements of rust on them. Our roofer repair technicians will then clean the area, lay down any sealant that needs to be done, and then paint your crown and cap with a color-matched Rust-Oleum product that will create a protective enamel on your metal pieces, stopping rust from becoming a bigger problem.
Chimney companies inspect and seal chimneys from the inside up. Roofers do it from the outside on top of the house, occasionally going into the attic to look for evidence of water damage. Either way, the ugly chimney may not just be normal soot from use, but rust.
Call us to make sure your chimney, and the other pipe jacks and flues, are in full working condition!
