Racheljaners

I really want to thank everybody for their input! This has been a frustrating situation but it is great to hear your unbiased opinions. I am very impressed with the responses and sincerely appreciate your help with this. After much consideration, I believe we have decided to take the chimney down. [:-weepn] Maybe someday down the line we may construct a suitable chase. THANKS AGAIN!!!

I called the local building inspector on this, but I have not heard back from him yet.

These two chimney pictures were taken by the inspector during his inspection before we bought the house. He said there were "no problems with the roof at the time of the inspection"

I finally have some exterior shots posted.

Hi Ben, our real estate agent referred us to the HI.

Thank you John! I agree with you that a home inspector would have caught it so we could have avoided this mess. As a matter of fact, we hired a home inspector and paid him $625.00 for his professional opinion before we purchased this home! However, he did not even bring this to our attention!! I think he dropped the ball on this big time. And yes, there is sign of movement, a 1/4 inch dip of one corner of the wood support into the floor. There is a visible slanting there.

I have one photo of the front of it, but not the back of it yet. I will attach it here. Oh, it is not supported above the roof line. Click to Enlarge 48.12 KB

Thanks for replying. The chimney is a monster. The majority of it is above the roof line, we have a very high peak that the chimney must rise above. I still cannot believe it is built on wood beams starting in the attic. I have seen water dripping down from between the board and brick inside and it is running down the 2x4s pooling on the attic floor, soaking the insulation and now through the downstairs ceiling. I have had 2 roofers look at it and one said he never seen a chimney with real brick built on a wood support. He suggested taking it down! I am at a loss, and don't know what to do. The roofer said the re-flashing would fix the leaking around the outside of the chimney, but he is concerned with the leaking from inside that is causing damage to the wood supprt structure.

HELP!!! We moved into a 16 yr old all brick house 3 months ago. Water began leaking through ceiling, I inspected the attic and discovered our chimney is leaking all aound the outside of the REAL BRICK as well as leaking from inside the chimeny. The chase cap is 2 years old, and is not the source of the leak. Part of the leaking is from bad flashing around the chimney. BUT that is not as big a concern to me as the leaking from inside the chimney, there is NO barrior between the brick (Which I know brick absorbs water like a sponge) and the pressed board box inside the chimney. (a gas fireplace) Thus, the water flows through the brick, and drains down the chimney and settles on the support structure of wood beams. I need advice because it does not seem right to me that the foundation for the massive chimney 5 ft by 4ft wide 25 foot high brick chimney starts in the attic, supported by wood and no steel! Is this strange to anyone else? Click to Enlarge 59.15 KB HELP!!! Click to Enlarge 91.52 KB Click to Enlarge 68.25 KB Click to Enlarge 65.12 KB Click to Enlarge 63.02 KB