When a homeowner finds a water stain on the ceiling near the fireplace, the culprit is usually not the chimney body at all — it's the flashing: the metal work that seals the joint where the chimney passes through the roof. It's the hardest-working seam on the house, and in Minnesota it flexes through every season, every ice cycle, every storm.
Eagle Chimney MN repairs chimney leaks across Saint Paul and the Twin Cities, starting with the flashing — and checking every other entry point before we call the job diagnosed.
Why Flashing Fails
Flashing is a system, not a strip of metal: step flashing woven into the shingles along the sides, counter flashing embedded into the chimney's mortar joints above it, and proper detailing at the corners. It fails when the metal rusts through, when counter flashing pulls out of a deteriorating mortar joint, when the original installer nailed through the wrong places — or when someone 'fixed' it with surface tar that cracked within two seasons and hid the real problem underneath.
What We Do Instead of Tar
Roofing cement smeared over a flashing joint is the most common chimney repair in Minnesota, and one of the shortest-lived. Our approach is to rebuild the joint properly:
- Failed metal removed and the joint opened up
- Step flashing correctly layered with the roofing
- Counter flashing cut into the mortar joint and set, not face-nailed
- Corner and cricket detailing where the roof geometry demands it
- Joints sealed with chimney-appropriate sealant as the final layer, not the only layer
Not Every Leak Is Flashing
Water is a detective problem: it enters at one point and shows up somewhere else. A cracked crown, porous brick, a missing cap or a rusted chase cover can all present as 'a leak by the fireplace.' That's why our leak work starts with diagnosis — our leak detection service exists for exactly this — and why we won't sell you flashing if your crown is the real problem.