Chimney Flashing Repair in Woodbridge, NJ
Woodbridge Chimney Repair repairs chimney flashing in Woodbridge and the surrounding Middlesex County towns. Flashing is the metal system that closes the joint where the chimney passes through the roof, and when it fails the water travels down the outside of the flue into the ceilings below.
Done right, flashing is layers of metal, not a bead of anything. Step flashing weaves into the shingle courses, counter flashing sets into a mortar joint cut into the brick above it, and a wide chimney on a pitched roof gets a cricket to split the water around it. Township roofs have been reshingled two and three times since the houses went up, and the flashing did not always come along for the ride.
How to spot a flashing job done wrong
A black collar of roof cement at the base
Tar around a chimney is a bandage over metal that should have been replaced. It hardens, cracks, and peels off the brick, usually within a couple of seasons, and the original gap is still under there.
Counter flashing glued to the face of the brick
Metal surface-mounted and caulked to the wall is only as good as the caulk bead. Counter flashing that is let into a cut mortar joint and pointed solid does not depend on sealant at all.
Leaves and ice damming behind the chimney
A wide stack with no cricket collects debris and meltwater on its uphill side. Water standing against the metal will eventually find a lap, and in winter, ice pries the laps open.
Rebuilding a roofline joint in Woodbridge
- Lift the shingles around the stack and strip the old metal and tar down to the deck.
- Weave new step flashing into the courses up both sides of the chimney.
- Cut a reglet into the mortar joint, set the counter flashing, and point it tight.
- Frame and clad a cricket behind the stack where its width and the roof pitch call for one.
- Re-lay the shingles and water-test the finished joint before leaving the roof.
The metal, the reglet, and when a cricket is needed
Aluminum or copper, chosen to suit the roof and the masonry, and never mixed against each other where contact corrosion can start. Laps always run with the flow of water. Counter flashing gets a hemmed edge seated in a ground reglet and is pointed in mortar rather than caulked. Crickets are framed, clad in metal, and sized to the chimney. None of it is improvised from sealant, which is the material this repair exists to remove.
Flashing repair pricing in Woodbridge
Chimney width, roof pitch, the shingle condition, and whether a cricket is required set the scope. Brittle older shingles that will not survive lifting add replacement squares to the job, and we say so before starting rather than after breaking them. The written price names the metal going on and covers re-laying the roof around the finished work.
Flashing service area
Woodbridge, Iselin, Colonia, Fords, Avenel, Sewaren, Port Reading, Edison, Metuchen, Carteret, Perth Amboy, Rahway, Sayreville.