Thursday, March 5, 2009

Oh where, oh where has my cricket gone?

Fireplace chimney

I knew when we bought this house that there should be a cricket to divert the water around the chimney here. You can't see it in the photograph, but the chimney is about 3-4 feet wide. Thus, there's quite a bit of water hitting it when it rains - and some of that water is leaking in.

Today, I climbed the extension ladder to investigate the condition of our roof.

Missing cricket
And then...

Missing cricket
The site of the missing cricket.

It seems that there was a cricket to divert the water around this chimney, but at some point in the past, some idiot, likely the one who installed this lovely bit of flashing, removed it. Meh.

If there's a reason why this would be a good thing, please, let me know.

3 comments:

NP said...

There is absolutely no reason to remove a cricket, or repair one that has come loose by using the modern method of flashing with caulk. At our last home, the flashing job was terrible with caulking smeared all over the lovely bricks. If people just looked into how a cricket is installed, and took the time to do it right, there would be a lot less roof leaks due to aging and poorly installed flashing.

NP said...

BTW, I love love love your slate roof! Our roof is currently ashphalt shingles, probably around 10-15 years old. It's holding up reasonably well. I'm considering replacing it with slate when it comes time, but I'm not sure if I can justify the cost. Most of our roof isn't easily visible since our house is pretty tall, but I think slate would look amazing.

Christopher Busta-Peck said...

I can imagine that your house would look great with a slate roof. It seems that yours would probably be easier to work on than mine, too. Start saving the money for it now, I guess.