Modern wood burners are wonderful additions to local homes. You just have to check out the number of new chimneys popping out of roofing in Auckland to see how popular they’ve become. But while the thought of sitting by a cosy fire on a cold night is appealing, a chimney flashing that isn’t properly secured to the roof is anything but desirable. It can cause all sorts of problems, mainly of the leaky variety.

Flashing is a piece of sheet metal that is installed to ensure the connection between a wood burner’s chimney and the roof is watertight. While fixing roof leaks is one of the more common jobs we handle as part of our roof repair services, an increasing number of those leaks are connected to flashing. It’s either been improperly installed or it has corroded with age. The thing is, problems with roof flashing around chimneys are quite difficult to spot from where you are at ground level. This can cause major issues because leaks can go unnoticed for some time. When moisture is able to seep under the roof and gain access to the attic area, in between walling, and ultimately onto the floor, serious water damage can occur. Fixing that damage can be a costly exercise.

If you’ve recently had a wood burner installed in your home, and if you’ve noticed leaks in the roof occurring at about the same time, it could mean your chimney flashing hasn’t been installed with due care. If you think this might be the case, get onto the phone to your fire installers as soon as you and ask them to check it out. Their shoddy work needs to be rectified. On the other hand, if you have had your wood burner for a while it could simply be a case of the flashing showing its age. It has been exposed to the elements for years and in our experience, it probably isn’t usually covered with the same sort of protective material as the rest of the roof. The fire installer probably doesn’t carry the same amount of blame in this case, and we are the best people to contact for a repair.

Any roof leak should be fixed immediately, regardless of whether the flashing is to blame or not. Ongoing water damage can have serious consequences so don’t ignore it and think everything will dry up. Get in touch with us straight away.