Leak-Proof Flashing: Fixing Leaks Around Chimneys

Can you show pictures of how to build a cricket or is there already a place to find one that shows it. Thanks

I don’t have anything readily available, but I did find this rather brief how to build a chimney cricket (scroll down to chimney section).

I have noticed water coming in around the chimney (the house is only 6yrs old), but I don,t want to use any products which will look unsightly. I have a (forest green)roof and if possible, I would like to know if there is any product which is transparent, or green which will help with the water leak. Thank You.

I had a new roof put on about two years ago. I noticed the last time it rained, it started dripping inside the chimney (between the rock facing in the house and the opening of the fireplace. Today it rained again and it is leaking down the front of the rockface. What could be causing this? How do I fix it?

I also like Wmberly on your comment page had my roof done 2 years ago. The tiles were put on October and by December I had water come down like there was (is!) a hole on the roof; $30,000.00 later! The roofer did not respond to our call. We then hired a chimney person to replace the cap & put a marine seal (10 year warranty). I called him when I had the fireplace full of water and his reply to me was “And what do you want me to do? Are you asking me to re-visit the job?”. Well, he never showed up either. I home with pots gathering water. Can you recomend someone in the south Florida area that knows what they are doing?
P.S. I had replaced the ceiling & wall sheetrock, redone the popcorn ceiling, wallpaper & more…it’s ALL going to waste.

Roofer installed new roof 4 yrs ago . Aluminum flashing is perforating away . Chimney is cultured stone with lots of morter showing. He will replace with product of my choice . What are my options on products, price and life span.I think he is expecting me to pay for materials.What are your thoughts I have a written 5 yr warranty.

I have a rocked chimney and wanted to know of flashing options for this. The one installed looks horrible, and was told it had to be like that because it is rocked not bricked.

Emily, did you ever receive any advice on flashing around your rocked chimney? I have one as well and I am getting ready to re-shingle.

We’re 3 years now working on this problem around the chimney. 2 roofers have tried to fix the leak to no avail. We have installed a ventless gas thing in the fireplace so I’m considering just wacking the chimney off. Any concerns with that?

I have noticed water coming in around the chimney and leaking into my attic. We currently will be installing a new roof. To be specific, we hired a contractor who will be removing the old shingles and tar paper and installing new shingles and what ever else is required. Is this sufficient, or is this a far more serious problem than that? What should we have the contractor do? or rather ask of the contractor?

I am now in the process of rocking my chimney, but it has rained, and I can see where the cender blocks are wet in spots and at the bottom (floor)traces of water is seen. Is this from the chimney liner?, or what? What can be done to fix this problem? This chimney is of age.

I have water dripping from under the fireplace lentle onto the hearth.Do to the size of the fireplace it sits on a slab outside of the building with only a small portion coming through the outside wall into the house. The chimney has a liner,but was constructed out of cinder block and then painted.When the chimney was constucted,the portion against the outside wall lays against T-11 paneling. Only part of the chimney goes through the roof and a cricket was installed in this area. Step flashing was installed.Flashing appears to be OK, do you feel that the water may be penetrating through the cinder block and finding its wat to the area above the lentle and dripping onto the hearth and this is where the leak is coming from ?

I have a cricket against a chimney. The house is only used in the summer. Every spring the plaster has to be repaired near hearth (interior). Water appears to be getting in somewhere. House has a new roof. Please advise. CHEERS!!!!!!

I have a leaky flashing. It was caulked and resealed about a year and a half ago. The sealant went over all of the (lead?) flashing and is made of a black tar-like material. This seemed to hold the leak for about 18 months, but now it is leaking into the house again. The company that sealed the flashing previously is planning to go over it again with a similar product. Do you recommend this course of action? How good are these “flashseal” products?

I had a horrible leak a few weeks ago along the chimney line but I could not find any problem with the roof flashing. My house is about 60 years old and the chimney is made of concrete bricks. I noticed it was totally soaked with water after rain. After reading your advice, I waterproofed the brick chimney with a silicone-based sealer. (One gallon sealer. Applied in two layers.) Yesterday, it rained heavily all night but I did not have any leak. Thank you so much!!

We have a metal roof and THEN had a fireplace put in w/a stone chimney. The mason had not worked with metal roofs prior and did not admit this——we now have a leak at the chimney! We believe that he did not put in a long enough piece of flashing, he tried to do a “quick fix” w/caulking but it is already out. We have pictures of the leak when it is raining——-how should the flashing have been installed since the metal roof was already in place?
Thank you, we just want it fixed but neither the mason nor the builder wants to take the responsibility to fix it!

Rain water runs down the inside of thin stone over cinder block chimney. I think a replacement masonary cap on chimney (not flue cap) would help. Old concret cap has chipped away. Would you please recommend a masonary product for a not very thick cap? Also is “Flex Seal” advertised on TV a good product?

does theflue liner go on the inside of the up stand of the lead tray or out side

I have a question. I had a guy from a chimney company come out and he was here for 55 minutes. All he did was put flashing cement around all three vent pipes and around chimney. Then he charged me $650.00. He didnt replace anything. Did he rip me off?

I had a new roof 2008.
Before that ….no leaks for the 3 years I had lived here.
Since that..leaks around the chimney.
My contractor says…I need a new “hat” for the chimney and that will fix everything.
Is this true? The chimney is NOT used…decorative purposes only.

My wife and I bought a 20 year old home last year and recently we had a chimney professional out to clean the chimney. While cleaning he indicated that a few things should be done and took some photos of the chimney to illustrate. The damper and grate was rusty so it seemed evident that rain had been getting in – some mortar in the firebox also needed repair due to water damage. In addition, he recommended a new crown (old was cracked) and flue liner. He also recommended a roofer redo the flashing and some overhanging limbs be removed.

We had all of this work done and then we had heavy rains for a few days. At that point I noticed that there was rain leaking into the firebox. It only appears to be leaking down the inside front and dripping onto floor of firebox.

I had the chimney guy come back out and put a new cap on and remove the old damper. I also asked him to look at the flashing that the roofer had done – he said it looked OK. It rained again and we still had the same problem.

So I had the roofer come back out to inspect his own work and also the work of the chimney guy to see if there was anything that looked like a problem. He indicated that everything looked fine.

It rained again last night and of course it is still leaking. So now the roofer and the chimney guy stand by their own work and claim that it is something that the other person did or did not do correctly. I don’t want to pay a 3rd person to come out and look at it. I just want it fixed.

By process of elimination I would like to determine what the most likely cause of the problem is so that the correct person fixes it. How likely is bad flashing to cause a leak inside of the firebox? It seems more likely that it is a chimney issue.

This is really frustrating.

My wife have a 2 year old house with a boxed in flue prmnetrating the roof. The exposed portion of the chimney is wrapped with brick. This brick starts just below the roof line. The builder attempted to fix this problem several times and even went so far as removing the brick and attempting to install flashing and drainage but with recent heavy rains there were numerous places where water was leaking in and saturating wood, the foam insulation and the ceiling below. The builder wants to spray waterproffing on the bricks and is assuring me that it will take care of the problem. What do you think?
I was hoping that you might have a detail showing the proper techniques addressing flashing / waterproofing / drainage associated with brick chimneys passing through the roof. The brick façade on the chimney starts just below the roofline except for the outside wall where it goes to the ground. I am trying to find specific details that I can show my builder. I am of the impression that he should have designed in adequate drainage to move the water away from the inside of the bricks to the outside. Everything I have read indicates that gravity and proper overlapping of impenetrable materials should take care of this and that coating the bricks with weatherproofing sprays is NOT the solution.

I have a ventless fireplace. Water is coming in underneath the fireplace were the ignite button is. It also starts leaking at the bottom of the mantle on both sides.
We are totally dumb founder on how its coming in. Any ideas?

During rainstorms, we had a continuous drip around our stone fireplace which we could not locate. We did everything we could think of…mastic around the chimney, replaced flashing, etc, with no success. Finally we called the man who replaced the roof five years ago. He arrived with a bucket of sealer and a paint brush. He explained that sometimes with older stone chimneys, the cement grouting becomes old with time and seeps. He brushed the sealer on the whole chimney, and presto…no more leak problems!

Water drips directly below our fireplace (onto the basement floor) during a rainstorm. There is no visibile rain actually coming into the fireplace but leaks directly under it??? The roof (and flashing) were replaced six months ago and I just had a new chimney cap installed 2 weeks ago. In addition to that we had sealant brushed onto the chimney. Still leaking. Any ideas???

Experienced roofer replaced my entire roof. When he originally came he claimed the shingles on the house were about 20yrs old or maybe even older. Well i noticed he didn’t replaced the flashings. He says it looks ugly . Will be an eyesore to the siding of the house and 9times out of 10 its not necessary to replace them if the old one is still in good shape. Im a 24yr old female. I dont know about this stuff. But it seems to me he is lying to me. Can you guys tell me if thats true. How good of a shape can a 20+yr flashing still be that its not required to be replaced?

danny..after many yrs of frustration i finally stumbled upon your website and your article about crickets . my chimney rised through my roof and is 5 ft wide. a tremendous amount of water was piling up behind it during forceful rains. i found a sheet metal worker who has built many during his life and he sent one to my home for a reasonable price. the install and building the cricket was around 800.00. thank god! i think it is over.

what about a chimney in the valley leaking. its not a common place for a chimney but it was repaired and still leaking.

My girlfriend recently purchased a home and we were glad to find out that it has had a new roof installed in 2010. Unfortunately, we have realized that the roof is leaking around the chimney pipe. The water runs down the pipe and drips onto tne sheetrock on the ceiling. It has eroded the sheetrock and has created a hole in the closet next to the fireplace. Is this a flashing problem or something else and is it expensive to get it repaired? Thanks.

My roof is leaking around the flashing of my chimney and it is coming through my ceiling in my living room just to the right of the fireplace. I had a roofing co. come out and give me a esitmate of $1064.00 to repair the flashing, replace the wood on both sides of the chimney, paint, and replace the top of the chimney (aluminum-top part). I am single and know nothing about chimney repair. Am I being taken advantage of? I feel this is a lot of money. What do you think?

I had a chimney company come down to do a routine cleaning on a 10 year old fireplace. After inspection the company told my wife the flashing is bad and is doing damage to the roof and will eventually leak so it needs to be replaced. He supposedly put on 10-12″ pieces of new lead flashing. When I came home from work and looked at the chimney work completed It looked like black tar over the entire flashing. Is that normal to do after replacing flashing?Also reading some of your comments and review on line to replace flashing you need to use new shingles to layer it correctly. I never gave the company any shingles unless they carry an assortment of every shingle color and pattern in there truck :-). Also he was only at my house for 2 hours in which time he replaced a chimney cap, fixed the crown on top,cleaned fire place and replaced flashing. Is it possible to do all that work in 2 hours?? As for the “cleaning” of the chimney he didn’t even come in my house. What are your thoughts??

Thank You,

Michael Kay

I have s rock chimney and have had a leak off and on about ever since the house was built…about 20 years ago. I’ve had several roof contractors try to find the problem and they usually just caulked something. After a divorce I was left with the problem. I hired a mason to rebuild the top part of the chimney and then a new roof in 2007. In August 2012 I had another roofer and insurance person tell me that my roof had some issues and I got another roof…shingle. Now, 4 months later, my house is leaking around the chimney. The water appears to come into the house right below the chimney…soaking the tongue and groove ceiling and right on down the wall. Please help me. I’ve called the roofer but he hasn’t been back out even though I have a year warranty on the roof. Do I now call a mason to look at the chimney? How can I find the right person to do the job. My money is about depleted from trying to fix it. I need to get it fixed for me or to sell. The house is really too big for me to keep as I age. Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated. I live in Boone, NC. Thank you so much

I have a leak behind my chimney where a cricket is installed. I hired a roofer who placed grey TPO material on the cricket and fixed the flashing. It really didnt fix the leak. I am now hiring a chimney guy to check the chimnay cap and seal my veneer stone chimney, I now have an ugly grey TPO membrane on my roof, behind my chimney, which does not really match the rest of the roof shingles. Can this TPO membrane be covered by asphalt shingles in order to match the rest of the roof?

I live in an old house. A few months ago we noticed brown messy water coming down the walls of our chimney upstairs. new flashing was installed by a very reputable roofer. I sealed the brick I could get to in the attic. I might add that no daylight can be seen looking at the chimney from the attic. The chimney has no liner. I am confident the bricks condensation is the crux of the problem. Is it practical to insert an aluminum or galvanized liner in the chimney? I am will to try about anything to avoid shingling over the existing chimney and constructing an outside one. What an expense that would be. Thank you for any advice.

We had a new roof installed 2 years ago and now have a leak around the chimney. The contractor is trying to tell us that it is due to the siding on the chimney. But if the flashing and sealant were installed properly, should water be leaking into the house?

Recently I noticed that my garage ceiling was damp and paint was falling off, when I looked on roof where it butts up against vertical wall, their seems to be no. flashing. Would this be covered under insurance for water leaks. Thanks for your help

Bees are somehow getting in along side of flashing by chimney. What can I use on that to keep them out?

I just had a new roof installed two years ago. It was old and I had three leaks. I had all old roofing and felt taken off. I paid for new flashing, replacing any rotted wood (my house was built in 1928), and new shingles. Now I have a leak in one of the same places I had before I had the new roof put on. The roofer came and put silicone around one of the dormers near the leak (about a foot away from the dormer and down a bit) and said he put silicone everywhere he could. Today it rained and I don’t see any rain coming in right now, but I’ll have to watch for a while. But doesn’t silicone wear out in a year or two? Isn’t that a temporary solution? When you get a new roof, should this problem have a permanent fix and if so how should it be done?

Seven years after my entire roof was replaced, the roof began leaking in several areas. I called the original roofer, but he refused to come back, so I called another roofer. He looked at the roof and told me that he could eliminate one leak by replacing some shingles, and he said that the flashing needed to be replaced in another area, to fix another leak. Well, after I paid him about $500 to replace the shingles, it rained and the roof still leaked. I called him and told him that he didn’t fix the problem, and he promised to return, but he didn’t, so I went onto the roof and noticed that the shingles he replaced weren’t close enough; there were gaps between some shingles, so I filled in the gaps with black tar, and I covered the flashing with black tar. Abracadabra! The black tar stopped the leaks.

I have a damp water vain coming down my lounge where my chimney is. This is due to all the rain water that has happened recently. I had a few years ago the top of my chimney sealed off because it was then that the same pattern occured. I have had an assessor come round to evaluate it and he said that from an insurance purpose the only thing he could see was that it required re decorating. I know there is something wrong which the insurance should do some thing about but need now to go to the root of this and sort out once and for all. Have you any suggestion who to contact that is a reputable company.

Could you please read the December 31, 2012 email already posted and please answer with what I should do? In 2013 I got a new roof. In 2014 I had the chimney rerocked with a new cap and flashing. My chimney is leaking again and started in about September 2015. Right now I really just want to take the chimney down. I can’t spend more and more money on trying to fix the leak. Could you please help me with an answer? Thank you so very much, Tanya Sherrill

Hello Team,
I have has a leak since I had a extension done in one area ( above chimney nr flashing), roofers has done the flasing several times, felt underneath, water test done on same day with me over seeing this, direct onto the area from outside, and no leak, but when it rains from a certain direction the problem NOT solved. I had a Log burner put in at the same time, so I am wondering if the old chimney has been disturbed or even cracked by the liner going in??? I have spent several hundreds of pounds and still the leak not resolved………….. Can you help??? I need someone to come and look, take picture eveidence so I can see what you have found, because my faith has gone I cant accept verbal anymore, Mrs Bramley

I had a new roof installed 12 years ago and when it rained I started hearing water drops hitting my inserted fireplace, I called the roofer and left him a message and he never returned my call. Now I’ve noticed that the front area of the insert has rusted and there is a small hole. I’ve had someone put the black tar around the flashing but I still hear the dripping when it rains. What can I do. I am a senior citizen and can’t afford to be ripped off. Any suggestions would help, thank you.

I recently purchased a cabin in NC. Prior to buying the inspector found that the chimney needed to be inspected by a roofer. NC has a “due diligence” clause in real estate contracts, which means you only have a set period of time to get your inspections done and, after that date, you can’t just drop the contract; mine was about two weeks. I could not get a roofer out there in that time period so the listing agent suggested she send out a handyman that can give an estimate for the roof since I was asking the seller to repair before purchase. My agent told me that the handyman had gone to the house and it could be repaired for $300. and the seller would repair. I never saw anything in writing until the day of closing. After we did the walk through and were at the attorney’s office the agent told me that the seller would reimburse me for the repairs that I asked for – which was $700. for the roof and nonfunctioning baseboard heaters. Anyway, I closed that day and have been trying to get the chimney fixed since. The same guy that the agent recommended brought roofers out and worked on the roof; they charged me $1800. The first time it rained water was running down the front of the chimney outside like it was a waterfall. It was also entering the house around the chimney on both floors (one fireplace under another on a two story house). I then started to find a chimney person; most I called did not come or kept putting me off. I finally got a small company out and the guy told me I needed a new cap, and some type of meshing around the flashing. He charged me $948. and promised the cap should be in about three weeks. He also helped wrap the chimney. I know this price is highly inflated but at this point I don’t know what to do. He said the roofers I had used only poured tar all around the chimney and he can’t tell if they counter flashed it or not. Now I will have to pay to have the tar removed. What do I do?