Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage in Chamblee, GA

Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage for Chamblee Homeowners

Chamblee's residential core — Huntley Hills, Keswick Village, Sexton Woods — is largely 1950s and 1960s ranch, and the chimneys are honest, simple, single-flue masonry. There is nothing exotic to them, which is precisely why they get forgotten. The typical Chamblee call is a house that has been in one family for decades with a fireplace used steadily and swept once, twenty years ago, or a newer owner who has inherited that history. Sixty-year-old crowns are also right at the age where the original concrete has cracked through and started letting water into the stack.

1950s-1960s single-flue ranch masonry; original crowns now at the age where they crack through and admit water.

A chimney is the only part of a roof that is deliberately full of holes, and in a climate that delivers as much rain as Atlanta does, the odds catch up with it. Water gets in at four places: a cracked crown, failed flashing where the stack passes through the roof, a missing or damaged cap, and brickwork that has become porous enough to drink. The difficulty is that the stain inside the house rarely appears under the actual entry point — water tracks down the outside of the flue and shows up a storey below. Sealing where the stain is achieves nothing, which is why people end up paying for the same leak three times.