Skylight and Chimney Flashing Repair in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

How is chimney flashing supposed to work?

Chimney flashing is a set of overlapping metal pieces, each one shedding water onto the next.

• The apron covers the downhill face and laps over the shingles below it.
• Step flashing runs up each side. One bent piece per shingle course, woven in so water can never get behind two in a row.
• Counter flashing is set into the mortar joints and folds down over the step flashing like a skirt.
• The back pan or cricket handles the uphill side, where water and snow pile up.

The roof framing moves with the weather and the chimney does not. Two separate layers let them slide past each other. A bead of tar across that joint cannot do the same job, which is why tarred chimneys leak again within a winter or two.

Does your chimney need a cricket?

A cricket is a small peaked roof built behind the chimney to split the flow and send it around both sides. Ohio's residential code calls for a cricket or saddle on the ridge side of any chimney more than 30 inches wide. Plenty of older chimneys were built without one. If yours is wide and has a flat pan behind it packed with leaves, that is the likely leak.

Which Falls houses have chimney flashing trouble?

About one Falls home in five was built before 1940, according to Census survey data, and many of those sit near downtown, along the lower numbered streets and on the south side toward the Gorge. They have brick chimneys that have been through three or four roofs. Each reroof was a chance to reuse the old flashing instead of replacing it, and many roofers took it.

Postwar ranches and Cape Cods have their own version. A furnace flue chimney often comes up through the middle of a slope, where it catches everything sliding down the roof.

Flashing only works if the brick holds it. Loose mortar, flaking brick faces and a cracked crown are masonry problems. Those are not repaired through this site, and the photo report will say plainly when a mason needs to come first.

Is your skylight leaking, sweating or worn out?

Skylights turn up most on houses from the 1980s and 1990s, which in the Falls means the north end and the streets toward the valley. Three different things get called a leak.

• A flashing leak. Clear glass, solid frame, and a stain at the lower corners after hard rain or a thaw. The unit is fine. The metal and the shingles around it are not.
• Condensation. Drips on a cold dry morning with no rain for days. Warm indoor air is hitting cold glass. No roofer can fix that from outside.
• A failed unit. Fog trapped between the panes, a cracked or yellowed plastic dome, or soft wood in the frame. No amount of new flashing rescues it.

Should a skylight be reflashed or replaced?

Reflash it when the unit is sound and has years left. That means lifting the shingles around it, laying ice and water shield, fitting new flashing and putting shingles back. Replace it when the unit has failed, or when the whole roof is coming off anyway. A twenty-year-old skylight under a brand new roof is the part most likely to bring someone back up a ladder.

What happens to flashing during a full roof replacement?

Ohio's reroofing rules say existing flashing has to be replaced where it is rusted, damaged or deteriorated. On a roof that has been through several sets of shingles, that usually describes all of it. During a full roof replacement in the Falls, the shingles around each chimney and skylight are already off, so it is the cheapest moment the flashing will ever have.

How do you get a chimney or skylight looked at?

The same way as any other repair. The owner checks the opening from the roof and from the room or attic below, sends photos that day and gives a fixed written price before anything is taken apart. The steps are laid out under roof repair in Cuyahoga Falls. If you would rather have the whole roof graded at once, ask for the free inspection and photo report.