Santa Wasn't the Only Thing Coming Down the Chimney

Faithful blog followers may remember that I discovered, with the strange early March 2009 snowfall, that there was a problem with water getting in and running down the chimney of the new fireplace in the kitchen area. At that time, Pete LaRoque (my general contractor) said it turned out the counter-flashing had never been installed. So he fixed it.

But then Winston-Salem had a lot of rain in early June 2009, and darned if that chimney wasn't leaking again (there's a picture with the blog entry found with this link). So repairs were done again, I suppose. In this case, Pete said the counter-flashing was installed but had not been sealed.

Then came the remnants of Hurricane Ida around Veteran's Day 2009, and here's what resulted:

I called Pete, who could not fix it in the rain, but he promised to do so the following Saturday. (I was working in Richmond so I wasn't home for his visit to once again repair the leaking roof.)


Ah, but guess what came down the chimney on Christmas Day 2009...Yes, the roof was leaking once again. So now I'm not sure why it continues to be a problem, but we'll certainly need to see about getting it fixed. At this point, I think you all can understand my worry and my concern. There is still discolored sheetrock where it meets the brick of the chimney, and the dousing it got in November made it very, very soaked. I haven't checked out the insulation around it in the attic but will certainly be looking into that as well.