Leak repair · Chimneys
Water around the chimney
A chimney is a hole cut clean through the roof with a heavy masonry structure standing in it. Two materials that move at different rates, joined by sheet metal, in the wettest path on the roof. That is why it leaks more often than anything else up there, and why it is almost never the shingles' fault.
Start here
The flashing is the roof at a chimney
Everywhere else on a slope, shingles shed water by overlapping. At a chimney the shingles stop, and a set of metal pieces takes over: step flashing woven into each course up the sides, counter-flashing locked into the masonry above it, an apron at the front, and a pan or a cricket at the back. Every one of those pieces has to lap the one below it in the right order. Get the order wrong and the assembly funnels water into the house instead of off it.
Because the pieces are layered and mostly hidden, a chimney leak is not something you diagnose by looking at it. What you can see is the last inch of metal and whatever sealant the last person applied. What matters is underneath.
That is also why chimney leaks get repaired repeatedly and never fixed. Sealing the visible joint addresses the only part anybody can reach without pulling shingles, so it gets done again and again while the actual failure sits three inches away under the courses.
What we can promise about timing
A chimney leak that only shows in hard rain is rarely an emergency, but that is your call and not ours to talk you out of.
Call and we will tell you honestly when we can be there.
No response window is published on this site, because Liberty has not committed to one and we are not going to print a promise the crew has not agreed to.
The six we find most
How chimney flashing actually fails
Roughly in the order we run into them on Gulf Coast roofs.
Caulk doing a flashing's job
The most common thing we find. Somebody sealed the joint between the masonry and the shingles with a tube instead of correcting the metal underneath. Sealant is a wear item on a coastal roof — it hardens, shrinks, and cracks — and the joint it was hiding is still open when it goes.
Counter-flashing pulled out of the mortar
Counter-flashing is supposed to be set into a cut joint in the masonry and locked there, covering the top of the step flashing. Surface-mounted counter-flashing stuck to the face of the brick lets water in behind it as soon as the sealant lets go, and that is a slow leak nobody sees from the ground.
Step flashing that's short, reused, or missing
Each course of shingles alongside a chimney needs its own piece of step flashing woven in. Continuous flashing bent along the whole side, pieces too short to lap properly, or old flashing reused on a new roof will all leak, and none of it is visible once the shingles are down.
The apron and the back pan
The uphill side of a chimney takes the most water on the roof, and the pan there is the part that most often rusts through, gets crushed, or was never lapped correctly under the shingles above it. Front-apron failures show up as a stain right at the ceiling near the fireplace.
No cricket behind a wide chimney
A chimney wider than a couple of feet needs a small peaked structure behind it to split water and debris around the stack. Without one, water and pine straw pile up against the back wall and sit there. That standing load is what turns an average flashing detail into a leak.
Masonry that isn't shedding water
A cracked crown, open mortar joints, or a spalling face lets water into the brick itself, and it comes out below as a stain that looks exactly like a roof leak. This one is not a roofing repair, and we will tell you that rather than sell you flashing you don't need.
Crickets, counter-flashing detail, and what a correct rebuild looks like are covered on our chimney flashing page. This page is about the symptom; that one is about the repair.
The honest caveat
Sometimes it isn't a roof leak at all
Brick and mortar absorb water. A cracked crown at the top of the stack, joints that have opened up, or a face that has started to spall will take water into the masonry and release it inside, and it lands on the ceiling in the same place a flashing leak would. On a prefabricated chimney, a rusted-through chase cover does the same thing. None of that is fixed by roofing work, and a contractor who sells you flashing for a masonry problem has taken your money and left the leak. We will tell you when the answer is a mason.
Keep reading
The rest of the leak guide
Same tree, different symptom.
Roof leak repair
Water travels. Where it drips is rarely where it got in, and that is the whole reason leak work is a diagnosis before it is a repair.
Read itCeiling water stains
A stain is a record of water, not proof of an active leak. How to tell which one you have before anyone gets on the roof.
Read itSmall roof leaks
Slow leaks rot decking faster than fast ones. When monitoring is a reasonable call and when it quietly costs you a deck.
Read itRelated
Where this connects
Chimney flashing repair
The component page: step and counter-flashing, crickets, and what a rebuild involves.
Read itRoof repair
The full repair service — shingles, flashing, boots, decking, and what we do not patch.
Read itFree roof inspection
What we look at, what goes in the written report, and why photos matter later.
Read itEmergency roof repair
Water coming in right now, a storm opening, or a tree on the roof. Call first, read second.
Read itRoof insurance claims
What a contractor documents, and where coverage decisions actually get made.
Read itCommon questions
Chimney leak questions
- Why does my roof leak around the chimney only when it rains hard?
- Because most chimney leaks are wind and volume problems, not holes. Rain moving sideways gets pushed up under shingle courses and behind flashing that sheds a vertical shower without any trouble, and a hard rain also puts more water against the uphill side of the chimney than the detail was built to handle. A leak that appears in a squall and disappears for a month is a classic flashing signature.
- Can chimney flashing just be sealed?
- Sealant has a legitimate place as part of a correctly built flashing detail, and it has no business being the detail itself. If the metal underneath is short, corroded, surface-mounted, or missing, a bead of sealant buys a season and hides the evidence in the meantime. We would rather correct the flashing once than come back to the same chimney every year.
- Is the leak the chimney's fault or the roof's?
- Both are common and they get fixed by different trades. Water entering at the flashing, the cricket, or the shingle courses beside the stack is roofing work. Water soaking through a cracked crown, open mortar joints, or a spalling brick face is masonry work. The attic usually tells us which, because the two leave water in different places on the framing.
- Do I need a cricket behind my chimney?
- It depends on the width of the chimney and the pitch of the roof, and it is a judgment made on your house rather than off a rule of thumb. Wide stacks on low-slope roofs are the ones that most often need one and most often don't have one. We cover what a cricket is and when it belongs on our chimney flashing page.
- Is chimney flashing covered by insurance?
- That call belongs to your carrier, and it usually turns on cause. Damage from an identifiable storm event is generally treated differently from flashing that corroded or was installed wrong years ago. What we do is document what we find, photograph it, write it up plainly, and meet the adjuster on site if you ask. Coverage decisions are between you and your insurer.
Free inspection · no obligation
Have us look at the chimney before the next storm
Free inspection with photographs of what the flashing actually looks like under the courses, and a straight answer on whether it's roofing or masonry.
Licensed Alabama roofing contractor #7430. Call and we will tell you honestly when we can be there.
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