Chimney Flashing Example Photo and Description Page

Updated 10 / 2014

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Chimney Re-flashing Work 8/2005

I was contracted by the Homeowners at 3036 SE Salmon in Portland, Oregon to replace the old rusty gutters with new aluminum gutters, but while removing the old gutters I got a closer look at the horrible chimney flashing job they just had done. This brown painted steel counter-flashing may look nice and clean, but it is just a good example of atrocious flashing work done wrong for several reasons I will point out in detail below.

Let me explain. Beside the issue of leaks and dry-rot (which is plenty important), As you can see when they cut these diagonal lines like this through the bricks they have damaged their chimney to create a fracture point. This will crack during an earthquake, which had caused thousands of chimneys to come crushing down in this area back in 1993, smashed cars parked below, and lots of other damage. That rusty pipe brace will not stop it from coming down off the roof. There is over a 2 tons of bricks over this roof line over 12' high. How much damage do you think that could cause?

These clients were not in a financial position to have the whole chimney rebuilt from the roof line up, so I did what I could to salvage this mess. It was surprising how easily the caulk came loose off the bricks when I pulled these flat steel panels off the sides. It clearly would not have lasted very long before blowing off in a wind storm.

I also found out how the roofer had not bothered to even step-flash around this chimney. I stripped it down and scraped off the tar they had used to seal the roofing to the bricks. It was quite an ugly mess, but I did the best I could up on top of a 2 story high ladder leaning over this steep roof.

The shingles on this side had to be completely replaced with new felt paper and shingles before I could start to attach these new step-flashing pieces. As you can see in the right photo this chimney placement was not planned very well being set right at the base of this valley in the roof. It had collect a great deal of debris below this 15' long valley above. It was very hard to get my grinder in this area to cut the groves for the new counter-flashing. Heck, it was a challenge to just get my hammer and crow bar in there just to remove the nails holding the old shingles down. I should have charged them twice what I had quoted for all the trouble I ran into.

These shots show the new shingles and copper step-flashing in place. You can see here how I made a special custom tapered pan at the base of the valley to help channel the water and debris off to the side of the chimney with a wide outlet, so it would be less likely to jam up with debris.

I did my best to fill in the diagonal cut with mortar and cover most of it with these new copper counter-flashing pieces. This may not look as smooth as the other steel flashing was, but it is a huge improvement functionally speaking. They were pleased with the work I did at a lower cost than the previous chimney flashing work had cost them, if you can believe that?

This client had me replace the gutters on a rental they owned several years later, so I can only assume this had held up well. Even after we had a record snow fall in the Winter of 2008.

Then about 7.5 years later in January 2013 I was called back to clean out their gutters, so while up there I was able to capture these photos with my IPhone. It was interesting to see how the copper flashing had kept part of the 'white' shingles I had replace cleaner there to the left of the chimney.

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Helpful Roofing Information
For some valuable advice with regards to roofing and rain management issues check out our:

(a) Gutter Installation
(b) Gutter Debris Protection Options
(c) Roofing Quality Standards
(d) Moss Control & Treatment

web pages for answers and solutions that could save you thousands of $ and a great deal of anguish.

If you do find this information very helpful, feel free to send us a $ tip for the assistance we so freely have published on the web here for your benefit, like you might tip a waitress.  Heck, send us a gift certificate for a candle lit dinner for two.

 

Below is a photo of our
Better Business Bureau's
NW Business Integrity Award
for the year 1998

1999 Better Business Award

We were also a 1997 finalist for this same award. See our referral web page to see how we managed to be honored with this special award

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