As I tentatively venture out of the Tavern to ask a real question (please be kind and remember I’m a homeowner):
Our house has a chimney that looks like it was added on after the original construction. It runs up outside the house on the gable end and through the ridge line of the roof with a gap of about an inch (depending on where on the beveled 5/4″ siding you look) between chimney and house. We have some serious evidence of water damage in the basement beneath this chimney and I suspect that poor (like NO) flashing is the culprit. I have some handle on what should be done at the roof for flashing, but I’m a little lost on what should be done for the siding/brick interface. The siding runs behind the chimney, and I’m not ripping off the whole side of the house (or the chimney) in order to get step flashing behind it. So what should I do here? I think I may end up doing this myself, because nobody is going to want to take on such a small job when they could be doing roofs in one of the many mcMansion developments going up, or applying cedar shingles to a Novell exec’s house.
Thanks for any advice!
Replies
I've never heard of a chimney that runs on the outside of the siding. Am I understanding you right that there are gaps then the entire length of the chimney as a result of the bevel on the siding??
This isn't much of a fix, but.... my parents had a cabin in Northern New York where the chimney began to settle and pull away from the house. It moved maybe 3/8 to 1/2 and stopped, so rather than rebuild the chimney or try to mudjack that much weight back into place, my parents had the union between house and chimney caulked. It held for a number of years and (thankfully) the chimney settled back toward the house.
Your chimney isn't going to get any closer, but short of removing the siding (and to do it properly, I think you'd need to get the siding from behind the chimney) or rebuilding the chimney itself, it might be your only option that's cost reasonable....
Good luck.
I would think the best bet would to be cutting the siding at say 3.5'' away from the brick..lay ina 1x4 trim board. 5/4 or full 2 by. caulk this at he brick and where it meets the siding..I have scribed a 4x4 ripped to 45 degree's to a log house, and the masons laid up face rock to it.
Obviously that is not an option but may clarify what I mean..other than the first idea..you could put say a 1x3 with scribe cot outs for the siding , flat to the brick. and again trust caulk. Perfect place for some sillycone or lexel.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Sphere,
That's a great idea. Excuse my ignorance, but how do you cut a straigt line on beveled siding that's already on the house?
first cut a pc. of 1/2 ply or even the trim itself.tack it to the siding..run the saw along the edge..the trim or ply will give you a flat surface..you certainly will have to get in the parrts the saw can't reach with a sawzall or a pull saw. The other side will be a challenge..it may require a saw with the blade on the other side (so the motor or base plate clears the chimney)
I have a cordless blade left, and a corded blade right..I got the cordless specifically for a similar job..it was window trim on masonite siding.
It's really not too difficult.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Thanks! I'll give it a try.
Thanks for your answer. Yes, the chimney runs up outside the siding with a gap of about an inch for the entire height until it intersects the roof. Unfortunately, the only way I can think of to remove the siding behind the chimney is tear down the chimney. I can't afford that option. I don't really want to have to reside one entire side of my house - the siding is rare and difficult to come by these days (9" exposure with true 5/4" bevel). Again, I can't afford the set up fee at a mill to cut me such a thing. The existing siding is pretty brittle and can't be removed and reused.
My husband has suggested grouting the gap, but I feel that this may not be a good solution since grout is permeable, and since the siding will move and the grout won't. Perhaps a few large tubs of caulk will be the way to go.
If it weren't for the beveling, we possibly could use the circ saw to cut a strip out on either side and slide the flashing in. But as it is I am at a loss.
I see that quite often where a seasonal residence becomes a year round home and a furnace gets added after the fact, or they change from electric heat to a furnace or boiler. It often does not create problems, depending on how much overhang the roof has.
I would use a sawsall to make cuts in the siding right in line with the edge of the brick chimney and slide step flashing under each piece of the siding. Make the bredak on the step flashing more like 100° instead of a true 90° so the pressure holds it snbug to the brick and cut it so it only lays onto the brick abpout 1" and seal it there with an appropriate caulk.
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Thanks for the detail piffin. I am goint to give this a shot, and if I'm not too embarrassed by how long it takes me, I'll let you guys know how it went.
If the siding goes completely behind the chimney, and all the way to the ground, seems the problem must lie elsewhere. I wonder how they handled the top. Was the chimney cut into the roof overhang? If so, perhaps that cutin was not flashed well, and the water is getting into the wall at the top.
What does the chimney serve? If it serves a fireplace, the water may be coming in where the masonry passes through the wall below for the firebox and such.
Edited 6/8/2004 9:24 am ET by csnow
Corey,
The siding doesn't go all the way to the ground, there is a basement window peeking out through the middle of the chimney foundation. This is directly below where the firebox extends into the house. So I think you are right - it isn't the siding that is the problem, but I think the water is getting behind the chimney at that gap with the siding and then running in either the firebox connection of that window. Since there is no damage to the wood floor around the firebox, I am suspicious of that window.
Our house had a brick chimney with the siding running right thru behind it. No water or flashing issues--those happen when the chimney is built against the framing and then the carpenters have to figure out how to flash the chimney and terminate the siding against it. Invariably that results in a joint that depends on caulk and it fails later.
I'd say the problem is at grade. Somehow water is getting thru your concrete and into the framing that's built against it to finish the basement. Maybe the guys who put the chimney footing there compromised the original construction. Why not do some good old fashioned water testing. Get a garden hose and run 1000 gallons of water on the ground at the base of the chimney. While it's running go inside and strip off as much drywall as needed to expose all of the wood that's been getting wet and rotting. I suspect you'll find out where the water's coming in quickly enough.
I've had the dubious distinction of being chosen to diagnose water leaks on buildings several times. It always involves hundreds or thousands of gallons of water applied to try to imitate nature. Sooner or later it always comes in, often not where you expected it.
Thanks for your suggestion, but I'd have to wait until snowmelt next year to try it (assuming that we actually get snow next winter). We are in the midst of a 6 year drought and a thousand gallons of water is something we just can't spare. Plus, the ground is so dry that it would suck up that water pretty quick - if it is a ground water problem then it would take a lot more to find it.
With all due respect for the posters I'm about to disagree with (all of whom can build circles around me, I'm sure)....
And with due respect to you, if you start cutting that siding your nuts.
If the siding is running uninterupted behind the chimney, then that is the last place I would look for the source of the water.
Now, after you've cut up your perfectly good siding and put a bunch of flashing, that will be the first place I would look for the source of the new leaks.
I bet your right on target thinking it is the window you are talking about.
Or...at some point the brick work goes through the siding, doesn't it??? Just above the fireplace???
Geez, make sure all the places that should be flashed are flashed properly before creating more places to flash.
Finally, did I understand that the rotted areas are dry and it is possible that the roof work fixed the leak?? And you're still considering cutting perfectly good siding???
It is probably more likely that I am completely misunderstanding the thread, but if I do understand then cutting that siding is just dumb.
IMHO, with due respect for those above who disagree.
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Rich,
I know - I agree that cutting the siding is not a great idea, probably even a dumb one. But I can't figure out a way to flash that window - it is completely surrounded by 12 inch+ thick foundation. The only thing accessible for flashing is the chimney to siding gap. Before we do anything, we are going to try the hose and see if we can spot the problem. It's a terrible thing to do during a heavy drought, but when the drought ends we'll have the water problem again! I've actually been considering doing an obvious DIY job by packing some expanding foam into the gap and then covering it with a lot of caulk (the foam is just a surface for the caulk to rest on. That would preserve the siding and maybe keep out the worst of the water, at least until the caulk failed.
Thanks,
Amy
Any chance we could see a pic of this window?? Or a drawing??
I'm having a lot of trouble visualizing the window.
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
Yeah, I've been meaning to post one, but I had to get the other 155 pictures off the camera first! I will take one this weekend. I hope.
Thanks for helping me try to figure this out.
OK, here's some pics. The shadowy area in the chimney pic is the window, which you can see the top of in the underside picture.
Thanks again for any suggestions.
Hmmm..if the top of that concrete is not sloped away from the house, ya got a problem. Even if it is, ya got a problem. That is one strange way to build a chimney.
Explore as much as ya can around that window, I am leaning towards what Beckman said..it OUGHT to be there and not necessarily the siding.
The pics. helped I was not quite seeing that in my minds eye.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
That is one strange looking situation, but I can still feel pretty comfortable that water can be following the horizobtal lines in behind there. The joint doesn't look that big to just cualk with a good polyurethene caulk though and skip the flashing. Beckman could be rigtht too, Hard to say from here.
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Wow! That is a really interesting situation.
Sphere and Piffin make good points. How is the junction between the concrete shelves and the siding detailed? And a good caulk at the junction between the bricks and siding might be sufficient.
If the leak is in fact from water getting behind the chimney, then I wonder if the problem can be addressed at the bottom of that "well" so to speak: where the chimney actually goes through the wall. I wonder if it is possible to get flashing into that area, though it doesn't look like it from the pic. On the other hand, if the leak is in that spot, it seems like you'd see water in the fireplace on its way to the basement.
I have never seen brickwork done scribed to the siding like that. I can't help but wonder what the back of that chimney looks like. Is the entire back scribed to the siding, or is the back further away from the siding than the sides? If the latter,than it may be possible to get flashing in there with the removal (and later reinstallation) of a couple of bricks. A bit more difficult to do than cutting the siding, but a lot more invisible afterwords.
The top of that window doesn't fill me with confidence. I would make sure it is in fact waterproof. And I would check the bottom of the same window.
Going back to your earlier post:
"I haven't had the guts yet to pull off the drywall and see the extent of the damage. I wanted to solve the water problem first. The weird thing is that it continues to feel dry down there even though we've had as much rain as we ever get"
Pull the drywall and find out the full extent of the damage. You might find helpful clues where the water is (or isn't) coming from.
"The weird thing is that it continues to feel dry down there even though we've had as much rain as we ever get, so I'm wondering if we may have solved the problem when we replaced the roof. There is not, and has never been a smell, not even a 'basement' smell."
Is it possible this damage occured many years ago?? Maybe the addition of the chimney actually corrected a leak! (I wouldn't put any money on that, but I don't think it is completely impossible).
Rich Beckman
Feeling a little more confident since I wasn't laughed out of the thread
I feel better about your conservative injection of balance and sanity. It's too easy to picture from a partial verbal desription and prior experiences and come away with an improper assumption.
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Piffin,
I thought you weren't gonna post that until after we agreed on what it was going to cost me!
Thanks.
Rich Beckman
Another day, another tool.
"Is it possible this damage occured many years ago?? "
Yes it is possible. I don't know how you tell the age of rot though. On the inside of the house the fireplace is elevated about 9" off the floor. There is wood floor that extends under the elevated hearth, and the flooring is pristine. Because of this, I think the problem is below the firebox/house junction. That's why I am concentrating on that window or groundwater (in the desert?).
Thanks for all of your suggestions.
>>We have some serious evidence of water damage in the basement beneath this chimney
I'm wondering if this is really a flashing issue.
Yeah, you'd like to see it flashed, but I don't see where the lack of flashing would lead to "serious evidence of water damage in the basement."
Unless the chimney is on the weather side and you have hard driving rains, I suppose.
If I'm understanding you, the chimney was added afterwards and the original siding is still in place. Flashing is mainly to keep water out of the structure. We don't have that issue here.
For there to be serious water, something has to be concentrating it there. Adding a chimney doesn't seem likely to do that, to me.
I'd look first at other water control details. Is the grade sloped away from the house on that side? Do you have good down spout extensions taking water from the roof at least 10' away from the house?
How old is the house? What kind of foundation does it have? Do you have a sump pump? What are the local contours like? (Hilly, flat, rolling? etc.)
What kind of evidence of water damage in the basement is there? Seepage? Efflorescence? Mold?
Is there any evidence that the chimney has shifted/tilted since it was built? Any evidence of undue pressure against thew foundation at that point? Bulging of the foundation wall, for example?
I'm thinking that if there was serious water problems at that location, the ground would be saturated and we'd see settlement/shifting of the chimney structure (I'm assuming they didn't go down to the bottom of the basement level for footings when they added the chimney,)
I've see cases of significant water penetration in basements where the only logical explanation was that water had traveled along the top of the footing for a distance before finding it's way into a basement.
Bob,
It may not be a flashing issue, that was just my guess. The basement is finished, and when we pulled off a builtin cabinet, we found that the bottom 6 inches of that wall are rotted, plus mold along the basemould of a wall that intersects it. I haven't had the guts yet to pull off the drywall and see the extent of the damage. I wanted to solve the water problem first. The weird thing is that it continues to feel dry down there even though we've had as much rain as we ever get, so I'm wondering if we may have solved the problem when we replaced the roof. There is not, and has never been a smell, not even a 'basement' smell.
You have to see this installation to believe it: in order to preserve the basement window that is directly under the fireplace, they poured the foundation for the chimney around the window. Since none of the other windows are flashed, I'm guessing that one wasn't either, so I think water is getting behind the chimney and then running in that window, which is directly over where we found the damage.
To answer your other questions:
Yes, the ground is sloped away from the house as much as it can be, the driveway runs along that side so there's only about 3 feet to fiddle with, less where the foundation of the chimney is. Ground water isn't really a significant problem here, since we are in the desert. We have gutters with downspout extensions, but since this is the gable end of the house, I didn't think it was much of an issue with this problem.
The house is 35 years old with a poured foundation. We don't have a sump pump, and I don't know anybody in this area who does. The chimney is at least 15 years old (probably closer to 30) since we didn't put it in and neither did the people we bought the house from.
Yes, the chimney looks to have settled since it was placed. The foundation looks solid as a rock (no pun intended) but there is a gap in the mortar about 6 feet up that looks like it was caused by shifting.
It's certainly possible that water traveled a distance, but since I can see the backside of the intersecting wall (that had the mold) and it is clean and the framing is solid, I am hoping that the problem really is concentrated right in that area.
BTW, I just noticed your profile's "Personal Quote."
Is that Carpe carp?
That's a 'memorable movie quote' that I've always been fond of.