Santa's Friend Chimney Service Blog

Keep Your Steel Firebox Unit from Rotting

Over the years, our Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA)-certified chimney sweeps at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service have found all sorts of problems with every component of a fireplace and chimney system. Some of these problems are difficult to believe, such as steel firebox units rotting. However, when water is leaking into your chimney, it can cause damage to every part of your fireplace and chimney. The CSIA does not call water the biggest enemy of a chimney for no reason. If your steel firebox unit has been exposed to water and has begun to rot and deteriorate, it can lead to an extremely hazardous situation, including a residential fire. Keeping water out of your chimney is one of the things we do best at Santa’s Friend, and we would like to tell you how we can protect your steel firebox unit from rotting.

Install a chimney cap on top of your chimney.

Called the least expensive way to prevent water penetration of your chimney by the CSIA, a chimney cap will protect your chimney from damaging water leaks as well as birds and animals that are trying to get inside your chimney to nest. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service recommends installing a chimney cap made from copper or stainless steel because of the lifespan and durability, but we also sell and install caps constructed from aluminum, electrolytically-painted iron, and clay. We can also make and install a custom cap to perfectly fit the top of your chimney.

Install a customized flashing system.

Consisting of sheets of metal that are wrapped around your chimney where it meets your roof, flashing makes a watertight seal that can be a great way to keep water out of your chimney. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service will provide a completely customized job by precisely measuring the area around the chimney and cutting sheets of metal to these exact measurements. We ensure we will cover every angle of the intersection of your chimney and roof. When we construct a flashing system, we will take the metal pieces and weave them into the shingles on your roof, fold them around the chimney, and even embed pieces into mortar to ensure the flashing remains in place.

Apply a waterproofing formula to your chimney.

To give your chimney the ultimate protection against water penetration, Santa’s Friend Chimney Service can apply a water repellent formula to your chimney. We start this process by cleaning your chimney, and then we will cover all of the exposed brick and mortar with a coating of the waterproofing formula. We have been using a formula from Chimney Saver for over 20 years and have found that it best creates a barrier to protect the exterior of your chimney from water leaks.

Your steel firebox unit can rot if enough water gets into your chimney. Protect your chimney from water penetration today by contacting us at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service.

How a Chimney Cap Can Improve Draft

You may know how important a chimney cap is to a chimney because of how it prevents water from rain and melted snow as well as birds and animals from entering inside the chimney. A chimney cap is one of the least expensive ways you can protect your chimney from the extensive damage that water, birds, and animals can cause to the interior of the chimney. A chimney cap also has another helpful function in that it can improve any draft issues your chimney might be having. If you have ever noticed smoky air or unpleasant odors coming from your fireplace, your chimney has draft problems. Draft issues can also be hazardous such as poisonous gases like carbon monoxide remaining inside your chimney for longer than they should. Santa’s Friend Chimney Service would like to share some information from The Wood Heat Organization to explain exactly how a chimney cap can solve draft issues by improving how air flows through your chimney.

Wind and Its Effects on Chimney Draft

To understand how draft works in a chimney, you need to know how the speed and direction of wind around the chimney affects the chimney draft. When air flows across the top of your chimney, it creates a driving pressure that increases the chimney draft because it helps pull the exhaust gases up and out of the chimney. In a perfect world, wind would always blow directly over the chimney; however, the wind is unpredictable and uncontrollable. If wind flows downward into the chimney after passing over a neighboring obstacle like a roof or tree or flows upward to the chimney from below its top, the wind creates a positive pressure over the chimney which can cause a negative effect on the outward flow of air from the chimney. That positive pressure results in chimney draft issues such as smelly, smoky air and toxic gases entering your home from the chimney through the fireplace.

How a Chimney Cap Improves Draft

Without a chimney cap installed at the top of your chimney, you will most likely experience problems with the draft. A standard chimney cap is better than no cap, but to most successfully battle wind problems, a chimney cap equipped with baffles, flow-directing panels, can do the trick by limiting the access of wind into the chimney. Designed to always create a driving pressure at the top of the chimney, a chimney cap with baffles will improve your chimney draft regardless from which direction or speed wind approaches your chimney.

Experiencing chimney draft issues? Contact us at Santa’s Friend Chimney Service to learn more about how we can solve that problem by installing a new draft-improving chimney cap.