Chimney Caps

I'm no expert, but I believe the cap serves 3 basic purposes.

1) To keep critters, leaves, rain, etc. out of the chimney
2) Regulation of the chimney draft
3) Used with a spark arrestor, the cap can potentially stop any embers or fines from exiting

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to correct me, lol.

-Kevin

A general steel cap with spark arrestor is good for critter prevention (racoons don't care how many dogs you have so long as teh dogs don't fit through the damper) Prevents sparks large enough to ignite nearby combustibles from exiting the chimney and it keeps teh rain out of the flue. The tiles are usually very resistant to the moisture but the mortar joints between them tend to go south.

4) To add an extra $40. - $120. charge onto your chimney cost.
5) So your houses chimney don't look like a diesel truck exhaust pipe.
6) For when airplanes fly over they cant see down into your house.
7) A nice place for birds to sit for a wile and poop on your roof.
8) To blind you when the sun hits it just at the right point of where your at.
9) Just for bragging rights when your neighbors dont have one.
10) To get stuck so you cant clean the chimney from the top.

BrotherBart said:

Roospike said:

4) To add an extra $40. - $120. charge onto your chimney cost.
5) So your houses chimney don't look like a diesel truck exhaust pipe.
6) For when airplanes fly over they cant see down into your house.
7) A nice place for birds to sit for a wile and poop on your roof.
8) To blind you when the sun gets to the right point of where your at.
9) Just for bragging rights when your neighbors dont have one.
10) To get stuck so you cant clean the chimney from the top.

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11) A place to mount the neon sign that flashes "Summit on Board" "Summit on Board".

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Hey ! You may be onto something brother. Hummmmm
The neon would have to be W.H. Red ya know.

Protecting the add-on cat is the only reason I have one.

did anyone mention helping to prevent downdraft?

hmmm, choices, hmmm, can afford chimney cap but not one with spark arrestor, hmmm
Now the decision,
1) without the cap --- the hot spark will fly about, land on my neighbors roof, burn them out of house and home.

2) with a cap the hot spark will deflect and land on my roof, burn my home down.
Hmmm decisions decisions... well I never did like my neighbor that much.

The only times I've seen sparks coming out of a chimney were during chimney fires, and then you're watching it pretty closely.

I took the spark arrestor screen out of my cap because I think the risks of falling off the roof while cleaning out the creosote-catcher screen far outweigh the unlikely prospect of a spark igniting anything flammable around my house, or my neighbor's--particularly in the winter when there's usually snow and/or wetness all over the place. I also take the spark arrestor screens out of my chainsaws.

Maybe it's just my thing.

are sparks illeagle?
If not, why arrest them?

Most caps are quite ugly, except my extendaflues of course....

If you really want bragging rights, put one of these on!

They help to keep jolly men in red suits out. They are also good to keep moron burglars out.

coldinnj said:

are sparks illeagle?
If not, why arrest them?

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You just round 'em up and hold 'em until they cool off.

I have one of Craig's Proppper Toppers.

I like it.

It looks great and with the same observation as Roo, It looks better than the neighbor's lack of one. This spring, I need to Email the MASTER and get another one for the ...I hate to say this....The Back-up GAS fired unit! :red:

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but I didn't really want to start another five page dissertaion about code compliance, But

They are required here!

You are, of course, grandfathered in if you don't currently have one. Only new installed need them.

My house did not have a chimney cap on it when we bought it. The previous owners never used the fireplace. The damper was rusted shut, and we had to have a chimney sweep come out to repair it. That weekend I put a cap on. It also helps to protect the iron parts of your chimney too, not just the masonry and terra cotta

One thing that I'm somewhat confused about is what the rules are if you have multiple flues in the same chimney? The house came with two caps, one slightly higher than the other, but only a couple of inches difference in the heights. We had a mason working on the neighbor's house, as well as our chimney sweep say that this was a problem because the way the two caps interacted, rain from one cap was being dumped into the flue of the other. We had the cap replaced with a single unit that fits over the top of the chimney, covering both flues with a single piece of metal, and having a spark arrester of expanded stainless steel mesh, looks like about 1/2" holes. The unit looks alot better, but this summer when we were not burning, I noticed alot more smell coming from the stove than I used to before, but this could have been either the new cap, the fact that the stove was seldom used before, or some other reason....

However I've seen a post or two here saying that there should be a difference in the flue heights to prevent cross drafting problems. (but doesn't that violate the rule about distance above objects w/in 10 feet for the lower flue???)

Is there anything definitive about multiple flues in the same chimney? If they are supposed to be different heights, why are the multi-flue size screen/caps s sold?

Gooserider