Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage in Riverdale, GA

Chimney Leaks & Storm Damage for Riverdale Homeowners

Riverdale is predominantly 1960s to 1980s single-storey housing, and the chimneys are consistent with it: conventional masonry, single flue, generally competently built and now around fifty years old. Fifty is a meaningful number for a chimney crown — it is roughly when original concrete that was never sealed has cracked through and begun admitting water in volume. We see a lot of Riverdale chimneys at exactly that stage, where a recast now is a routine job and the same chimney in five more winters is a rebuild. It is one of the places where an annual inspection genuinely earns its money.

1960s-1980s single-flue ranch masonry now at fifty-plus years, with original unsealed crowns cracking through and admitting 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.