Why does a chimney keep leaking after multiple repairs?
Water keeps leaking along the edge of the chimney during heavy storms despite being repaired multiple times by different contractors. This recurring issue leads to black mold returning years later and leaves homeowners wondering if the entire chimney needs to be replaced.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1buying a ladder to check out the flashing
- 2Hiring multiple different contractors to repair the drywall, ceiling, and sealing around the chimney
- 3Replacing the entire roof
- 4repointing the chimney masonry
- 5having a local professional inspect and repair the flashing
- 6looking up pictures of good chimney flashing online for comparison
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“This leak along the edge of the chimney has been repaired at least twice by two different contractors.”source ↗
“Now it’s around three years later and this black mold is appearing AGAIN.”source ↗
“I am honestly at a loss for what to do, do we need to replace the chimney itself? What else can we possibly fix?”source ↗
“Your chimney is shot. Needs to repointed at best, rebuilt at worst. Then address the atrocity of the current flashing. It all needs to be replaced.”source ↗
“There's a leak under this in the attic ceiling. What would you say I should do to fix?”source ↗
“Can you elaborate? And would it be best to just get it replaced?”source ↗
“I'm going to repoint the chimney although it's hard to understand how that could create water intrusion as it leads to a void”source ↗