Flashing Saddles!
That's right...I flashed my saddle on New Year's Day. And the day after that, and half of the day after that. Well, technically, I flashed my chimey cricket.
But before you get the wrong idea, let me just tell you what I really mean. A cricket prevents water and snow from collecting behind a chimney. Two plywood triangles are cut and built in a mini-roof peak form. The cricket is then covered with a custom-bent saddle flashing.
Don't I sound smart! Well, I learned everything from the internet, specifically over at the Lowe's website.
Well, I didn't just get bored on the holiday break...there was a reason for all this work. Believe me, I had other things to do while I was off from work, but this kind of took priority. Read more to see why.
MORE...
So, after a trip to the Houston area to see the in-laws, I was looking forward to coming home and enjoying some time off to clear up some other minor things or getting some rest. A couple of nights after we returned, we had some friends over for dinner and it just so happened we were getting some really good rain. We've needed good rain since we've had two years of stifling drought and I was excited with every rain chance we had.
As the deluge began (we got almost 3 inches of rain that evening), I noticed something that had been problematic for me since the end of the summer, a lovely trickle of water down the wall above the fireplace:
Isn't it lovely? I was peeved to say the least. So much so, that I got dressed up in old clothes and grabbed a ladder, the flashlight and the umbrella, and went out in the rainy mess to see if I could find anything out of place on the roof while it was still raining. I didn't see anything, needless to say, so I spent the rest of the night rotating fresh rolls of towels under the leak.
Now, this isn't the first time this leak has happened, it's happened twice before, the first time the paint in the leak bubbled out to about the size of an orange before the water came through. I called a buddy (who had a tall enough ladder) and he and I went up to investigate. We spent that day looking for any possible areas for leakage and sealed it with a silicone-based roof sealer. I was pretty excited...BRING ON THE RAIN, I'd say. For the most part it worked, until the next big rain event.
The second time is what caused the dirty discoloration along the ceiling/wall joint in the previous picture. Another nice 3-inch rain night and again, another stream of water seeping in from the previous leak. Apparently I missed a spot in the first repair event.
Perplexed, I stood at the window adjacent to the fireplace/chimney and mired myself into deep thought... "If I were water and came in there, where would I get there from?" I know, it's crazy, but I was really annoyed and wanted to figure it out. After a while my brainstorming led me to look in a different area; just under the roof soffit was a little shingles extension where the chimney expands to make room for the fireplace. Ah HA! That had to be it! It must be! I went out with my ladder and lifted up the edge shingles (their glue had dried out in the drought apparently). What I saw was pretty disconcerting; a 3/4 inch gap was there between the siding on the chimney and the plywood roofing. Wow...all kinds of water could get in there! I went to Lowes, got some galvanized metal for flashing, metal snips, roof sealant caulk, and some more shingles! I re-did both areas on either side of the chimney inserting one big piece of flashing to cover the whole surface.
Finally, I had it fixed. The next light rain we had NO LEAKS! Yay me! Or so I thought...again...
Back to the night after our Christmas trip, and things were back as they were. Where was all this water coming from?! I looked everywhere! It can't be coming in from the roof, there are no damaged shingles and all the chimney flashing is intact. The damage is now bad enough that a small hole formed from the leak and my constant toweling.
Gah! I was getting pretty angry by now. The house is only just over 4 years old, there has to be something wrong with the chimney, I concluded after all my research. That amount of water just doesn't come in from a leak in the shingles.
The third time is a charm, I thought. If it's not, I'm going to have to call a contractor and get some real work done, but with my wife's car being totaled a couple of weeks earlier (not her fault), we were also dealing with the whole insurance claims run-around and didn't have the means to get a roofer in.
So, I took some advice from my father-in-law and got up on the roof with a hose. I had my wife at the ready at the leak point to let me know if I'm getting water in. I picked a few choice spots on the roof that connect with the area of the leak and started spraying in small, controlled spots trying to narrow down the leak. It turns out that I successfully recreated the leak(s). There were actually TWO leaks, one from each side of the chimney.
At this point, I started lifting shingles to track the water in. Most of the shingles lifted with no effort, as the drought and their cheapness kept them from ever sealing themselves when they were first put on. I have at least three warranty claims from the first year of owning my house about shingles blowing off and even one small leak. I was told, "the hot Texas summer will seal them up REAL good. You ought not have any more problems then." To which I informed the builder that these claims were mostly AFTER one full Texas summer.
Anyway, after confidently tracking the water in, I carefully started prying up all the roofing staples and removing the shingles in areas the hosed water got to. I saved as many shingles as I could, but some were in bad shape and I had almost a full package of new ones in the garage. When I got all the shingles up, I was pretty astonished at what it revealed. What you see is exactly what was under the shingles. I did not remove or tear anything underneath:
Looks like the roofing contractor decided on not fully laying down the paper, or ran out and didn't want to get more. I've watched these guys put roofs on many times, we were one of the first in our area, and they do it fast. It's kind of impressive, but not when you see what corners are cut for the sake of time:
There's the infamous 'cricket' I mentioned earlier. Naked as the day it was cut; and cut sloppily I may add. Anyone see what's missing? Yep... NO SADDLE FLASHING. The cricket wasn't even papered over! The only level of protection it had was shingles. I'm a bit annoyed now...I took pictures, because I plan to get in touch with the builder (who's name I won't mention at this time) to see what they say. The pictures speak for themselves.
So I tracked the water from the valleys of the cricket down into the chimney siding to my walls. It's no surprise to see why water was coming in when it rained hard enough...look at the gaps in the cricket:
Here's a close-up of the gap in the cricket:
Underneath the cricket is plywood from the roof that leads to the framing of the chimney. Let me remind you that I've watched this builder's houses go up all around me and I know that there isn't anything under there that's sealed. Whatever makes it under the cricket makes in down the inside of the walls. The chimney itself was flashed properly and I was able to utilize it in the next step of my fix.
By the end of day one (New Year's Day), I had pried up all the shingles, saving most, and laid down some proper 'tar paper' (it's really a fiber paper that's water resistant). The stuff I bought was much thicker than what was on the roof to start.
Luckily, I had a good amount of galvanized flashing material left from a previous repair (which fixed two of the many leaks I've had here). So I set out the next morning to do some proper saddle flashing. I had JUST the perfect amount and it came together pretty easily:
At this point, I'm confident that the major leaks are done with. I have two layers of protection now, the thick fiber 'tar' paper and the galvanized flashing. It's all one piece with the exception of the tip. It wasn't quite covered; there was about 1/2" left, and I had more enough to layer over the exposed tip. Here's another view:
I finished out day two by laying shingles in. I had my good buddy around to keep watch over my supplies (upper left of the picture), so I wasn't all alone during this job. It was pretty easy and went really fast. By the end of day two, all that was left was the saddle shingles. Here's what it looked like at the end of the day:
By now, I felt pretty good if it were to rain that night. It wasn't supposed to though, but it was the next night, but I had to leave it here since the sun was setting:
The next morning, I got up on the roof as early as possible to finish off the shingles. I started around 9:15am and finished around noon:
I was careful with the valleys on either side of the cricket/saddle since that was where both leaks came from. I wasn't about to have this happen again. The valleys worked out really well with the way the shingles fell.
Finally I finished it all off with some roof cement under all the shingles I replaced. They ought to settle in nicely as it warms up this spring. In the meantime, I'm hoping this is the end of my chimney leak woes. It was kind of fun working on this project, but I just wish this was a home improvement alone, rather than a repair.
I'm feeling pretty good about it all now...I have three layers of protection now where I only had one before. It's supposed to rain tonight into tomorrow, but I won't know for sure if this worked until we get some heavy sustained downpours.
Let's hope I get to move on to sheetrock patching/painting next.
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