Your chimney chase repair crew in Meadow Woods

What a chimney chase is built to do

A chimney chase is a framed box that wraps the factory-built chimney pipe on its way up and out of the house. It is built from studs and sheathing like any exterior wall, then finished with siding or stucco to match the home. From the yard it can pass for a masonry chimney, but no brick holds it up.

The chase has two jobs. It keeps weather off the metal chimney inside, and its framing is laid out to stay the distance from the pipe that the chimney maker lists. When water gets into the box, the wood can rot for a long time behind a finish that still looks fine.

Our technicians treat chimney chase repair in Meadow Woods as exterior wall work with a listed chimney in the middle of it. The written estimate names the wood, the finish and the water path separately, so you can see what each line fixes.

The layers that make up a chase wall

Every chase wall is a stack of parts, and each one fails in its own way. Knowing the stack helps you read an estimate and ask sharper questions before anything gets torn off.

Water usually gets through the outer finish first, then soaks the barrier, the sheathing and finally the studs. Repairing only the outside layer leaves the rest of that stack wet.

Our crew checks the layers in order and writes down where the damage stops in each one. That is also why our estimate is written layer by layer. From the inside out, a typical chase is built like this.

• Framing, the studs and plates that give the box its shape
• Sheathing, the plywood or strand board nailed over the studs
• A water-resistive barrier, then siding or stucco and trim
• The top plate and framing that sit under the metal cover

Soft studs and plates inside the chase

Studs and plates are the bones of a chase. Rot in framing tends to start at the ends, where end grain drinks water, so the bottom plate, the lower ends of the studs and the top plate are the places to check first. Corners matter too, since two walls share the corner studs and both drain toward them.

A stud that takes a probe easily, feels spongy or crumbles in hand has lost its strength. Several soft studs in one corner can let the chase sag or twist, which opens the siding joints and lets in even more water. A soft top plate also lets the cover settle.

Our crew in Meadow Woods replaces rotted plates and studs with new lumber, or sisters sound new wood alongside where the old stud is damaged at one end only. We tell you which method fits each stud, and why, before the wall is closed.

Where the chimney passes a closet or room

On some homes the chimney pipe passes through a closet, a storage area or a bonus room on its way up. DuraVent's manual says interior chimneys are enclosed where they run through closets, storage or occupied spaces, and the enclosure keeps the required air space around the pipe.

Those inside enclosures are part of the same chase. A leak at the top can show up as a stain on a closet wall, and boxes stacked hard against a thin enclosure can press it toward the pipe. A closet enclosure also hides the pipe from view, so nobody notices when something has been pushed up against it.

When a chase repair reaches inside the house, our crew checks the enclosure walls, the air space and the firestops at each level. Drywall repairs in finished rooms are listed separately. We also suggest keeping stored items off the enclosure.