Now that the roof is complete, it’s time to repair the parging on the main chimney to keep the rain out of the attic. The photo above shows the front (south) side of lower part of the chimney with the new parging added.
The back (north) side of the chimney with the parging repaired.
View from the ground of the repaired chimney.
UPDATE: March, 2010 – Recently, each spring we have found that during the transition from winter the roof starts leaking really bad up near the main chimney. So, last year I went up there and noticed that all of the new parging had begun to get cracks. Apparently, the freeze/thaw cycle is wreaking havoc on the parging. When the weather started warming up, and snow gave way to rain, the cracks allowed the rain to get in behind the parging and then leak into the attic.
I used some caulk to seal the cracks, and it seemed to solve the problem. But, it was only temporary. This spring it began leaking again, so that meant another trip up to the roof, and more caulk.
Meanwhile, after doing some research we came to the conclusion that the parging on the main chimney probably wasn’t original to the house. It was most likely added years ago to stop leaks when the original metal flashing rusted out. So, we determined the best route would be to just replace the chimney with new brick, and leave it exposed like it probably was originally.
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