About 3 years ago, we had a gas fireplace insert installed into our existing brick wood-burning fireplace. All was well until this fall, when we had our first really heavy rainfall with high winds of the season, that I noticed rainwater dripping onto the top of our gas fireplace insert. This continued to only happen during days with heavy rainfall. We live in the Pacific Northwest where is rains continually throughout the winter, and it's not a problem unless the rain is heavy, and usually coupled with any kind of wind.

We figured it was the chimney cap failing (cracked or dislodged) or somehow the insert tube that pops out of the top of the chimney somehow was now collecting the rainwater and allowing it to fall down into the chimney (whereas in the past years it was somehow preventing it from getting inside the chimney).

I have had two quotes from experienced and qualified chimney 'leak experts'. One told me my Chimney's mortor was cracked and had holes all over it and it needed to be replaced (at the bargain price of $4,300). I asked if he could do a repair - he said their company does not do repointing because he cannot guarantee it because it always fails. Ummm... okay, I thought people repointed all the time? Don't people with brick houses have to repoint?

Expert #2 told me basically the same thing, but said he could repair it by repointing the entire thing and replacing the chimney cap and gas fireplace top, etc. His bargain price was $1,800.

My husband and I were convinced that water was getting into the top of the chimney and running down the gas fireplace insert's tube and falling on top of it. We looked at the chimney itself, there were only about 7-8 keyhole size holes in the mortor, so we couldn't see how we were getting so much rainwater falling on top of the insert (about a cup every hour in a heavy rainstorm) from these thin crack-sized holes.

We decided to do a water test on a rainy day when the bricks were already saturated with water from about 24 hours worth of light rain. We started at the bottom of the chimney and worked our way up. We had no leaks near the flashing. About 15 minutes of 'spraying' water on the chimney resulted in no leak. My husband then switched the 'shower' water setting on our harden hose to 'shot' and then shot a heavy stream of water directly into the holes to get it to leak. It eventually did leak, but the leak was near the back of the fireplace (closer to the bricks) not directly on top of the gas fireplace unit. Then we did a water test where we tried to replicate blowing, heavy rain on the chimney cap and blowing into the opening of the chimeny. Sure enough, within 2 minutes or so, water was dripping onto the gas insert in the same spots and at around the same rate as it would in a heavy rainstorm.

I think the solution to this problem is to repair the mortar in the spots there are holes (why repoint the entire chimney?) and somehow try to design a better water-catching/draining system at the top of the chimney. It's like the fireplace insert's tube is acting like a funnel - catching the rainwater and then allowing it to travel down on top of the insert unit. Does this sound like a reasonable repair? Obviously, it's hard to tell without looking at it (even a photo probably wouldn't help, but I can post one if anyone out there thinks it will), but my hubby and a friend of ours thinks that's a reasonable and cost-effective solution. We are planning on selling our house this summer, so we don't want to do anything too drastic - we just want to make sure we can get it to stop leaking so it doesn't rust out the gas fireplace insert for the new owners.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!
Paula

You have already done all the work now just fix it or have a large chimney chase cap made and cover the entire top then add on tour chimney cap.

You have already done all the work now just fix it or have a large chimney chase cap made and cover the entire top then add on tour chimney cap.

Thanks for the response.

We have a cap on our chimney already - but it's the brick and mortar kind and open on two sides, closed on two sides. Can a metal chimney chase cap be put inside this brick cap and overtop of the gas fireplace insert tube/vent? We'd like to keep the entire chimney intact (because we have two and we want them to match), so I am just confirming that it's feasible to have a metal chase cap inside another brick cap.

Before we have another chimney guy come for another estimate, I want to know EXACTLY what I'll need to fix this - then they won't try to fix things that don't need fixing!

Thanks again!
Paula

A chase cap acts like a main overlay of the top of the entire chimney just not the flue pipe area as such you will have to do both chimneys to match. Around here they form stainless steel for a good long lasting unit. Copper also works and looks good after it has its patina/color change.