so the roofers painted my stainless steel class A chimney

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
Status
Not open for further replies.

kerryb23

New Member
Feb 4, 2009
15
East Tennessee
Hey folks. Not a frequent poster, but a frequent reader. always plenty of good info on here. i'm hoping some folks can help me out with this one.

So as the title states, i just got my house reroofed. and it looks great. except they painted my chimney olive drab green. i have no idea why. i have a feeling they didn't know it was a chimney, since they also painted the vent pipes and such. don't ask me how someone could not realize it was chimney. granted, of course i had no fire going during the day. (was at work, and of course they need the area safe to work around.) apparently this happened yesterday and i got home after dark, fired up the stove without realizing that my chimney had been turned into an army green stack.

this morning i called the folks who installed my chimney and stove and explained what was up. that fella said that 1) WTH would someone paint stainless steel? 2) generally paint doesnt adhere to SS and the heat will make it start coming off at which point it will start to look like sh*t. 3) he didn't seem to think it was an immediate fire hazard. he recommended removing the paint asap but didn't really have any suggestions as how to do that.

so then i contacted the foreman today and explained the situation. i got a whole lot of 'yeah. uh huh. ok. we'll take care of that.' i'm not convinced it'll be 'taken care of' b/c this whole roofing deal has been nothing but a pain in the rear since we got started.

so has anyone had this happen before, or have any experience removing paint from a SS surface? plus now it's essentially been baked on. i don't yet know what kind of paint has been used but working on finding that out.

this whole day has been one big face palm.i'm trying not to be blazing mad. i really liked my shiny chimney just the way it was. thanks for in advance.
 
How much pipe are we talking about ? Could drag some plastic up there and hit it with some zip strip. Should come off pretty easy as I would not think it would adhere well to stainless.
 
These guys tend to sit on stuff. Call them again, get a date that they will either clean it off w/o scratching the hell out of it (by the way, ss has a protective coating on it, that if gets scrubbed too hard will look like crap) OR replace exactly what you had there already. Be calm, see what happens. If they don't do right by everything, get your lawyer to write them a letter (usually around 100 bucks) and I expect they will fix it and leave w/there tail between there legs. Good luck!
 
That is one of the most retarded [moronic] things I've heard in at least a month. Those guys obviously have the collective IQ of a bucket of gravel. Good luck.
 
Have they received the final payment yet? Hopefully not. Get a quote for replacing the pipe so that you have some actual value to talk about instead of aesthetics.
 
Bummer! Unless they etched the stainless with white vinegar or some such, then primed and then painted, I do not think you will have to worry about the paint staying on it. Of course, the seams, hangers etc will have some of it hang on forever. Beware that if they use anything to brush it other than a brush of the same alloy, you will get rust on your stainless. When I represented chimney manuf, I would occasionally see a piece of pipe that the owner installer dragged across the rust mild steel tailgate of the truck which would embed microscopic steel into the stainless with predictable results.

I'm a pipe fitter/welder by trade and in the stainless areas of nukes you couldn't even take your pocket knife into the containment areas for the same reasons. Good luck on this. I'd consider pushing for replacement. did they paint the house olive drab too. ;)
 
My stainless double wall chimney was painted with white vinyl exterior paint 20+ years ago. Paint still in perfect condition. Down side is more radiant loss from the top section of the chimney. What was I thinking? The air cooled chimney for the fireplace was galvanized as were both ventilated flashing/storm caps. I just forgot about the radiant factor wrt keeping the class A stainless warmer. My roof penetrations are not visible from the approaches to the house. I must have been thinking about future corrosion rather than appearance.

Did your contract specify stainless was not to be painted? I would read the company promotion literature, their bid, and your specific agreement. Perhaps you will find documentation. Otherwise, a reasonable man could find the contractor did no harm. Harm could be done by removal of the paint, wear on the new roof, and other unintended consequences. The contractor may try to be held harmless from activities related to removal of the paint. YMMV
 
thanks for all the info so far, everyone. after posting i did a little research on paint removal from SS and it did caution against using anything abrasive. considering the screw up so far, i'm not real eager to have them come out here and "fix" it. i'm starting to lean towards replacement. BeGreen, no, they haven't had final payment yet. there's still a little work left to be done. believe me, i'm going to sit on the money til my every whim has been pleased. and i will get a replacement quote. Jackfre, why they whole OD green I'll never know. the shingles we chose for the roof are called mint green and they're very light colored. makes me wonder if they had a can of paint rolling around in the bed of the truck and said 'oh, this will work!'

thanks again. i'll keep ya'll posted.

edited to reply to jimbom: nowhere in the contract was the word paint even mentioned. only to repair breaks in the decking, strip off old shingles and felt paper and replace with new. when i spoke to the foreman he was somewhat confused why it got painted and he has been pretty helpful thru the whole roofing process so i'm hopeful this will work out. i might give the zipstrip a try myself on a small area. not sure yet. this all fell in my lap today so i'm still trying to make a plan of attack. more advice is always welcome.
 
How many feet are effected? Fair market price of all replacement parts, to be subtracted from monies due to them... seems like a fair place to start my negotiations on the bill..

Idiot comes in all forms.
 
approximately three feet from where it emerges out of the roof. and i should add, it's very visible from the street/front yard. oh yeah, and we're working on getting the house appraised for a refinance on the mortgage. i'm calling my stove installer tomorrow to get the price on that piece.
 
i'm bad at estimates. from where the chimney comes out of the roof is approx 3-4 feet. i'll try to get some pictures posted tomorrow. but the entire thing is painted, from the base up to the very top. i'm going to get up on the roof tomorrow and take a good close look.
 
If, in the end, they won't make good on it and you want to try to restore it rather than replace it, then have at it...but I wouldn't touch it with zip strip or anything else until everything is worked out with the roofing contractor in whatever way it plays out. Maybe they were just laying down the first coat of a camo paint job. (j/k, I know it ain't funny, but sometimes you just gotta keep things in perspective, and laughing about stuff that's not life-threatening usually helps me do that). Rick

ETA: I seriously doubt that the undesired chimney paint job is going to have any influence whatsoever on your home appraisal.
 
metalsped said:
3 feet? So... is there some of the chimney that they didn't paint above that? I assume there is, because that doesn't sound like something that would meet code.

If 3' vertically from the roof penetration puts the chimney top 2' above any part of the structure within 10' horizontally, then it's just fine. Quite possible, depending on the specifics of the roof and the location of the chimney penetration. Rick
 
One thing about stainless - it stands the heat well. Perhaps a heat gun will soften this paint enough to allow a plastic card to remove it. I agree with the others, consider not fooling with it until the roofer comes up with his best and final offer.

Often when a roof is replaced, the flashing is replaced. After all, a 20 year old roof has 20 year old flashing. In 20 more years, the flashing will be 40 years old. An old trick is to paint the old flashing and try to pass it off as new.
 
Up here the better roofers will give exposed galv. 'B' vent flues a quick spray with black rust paint. It retards corrosion and makes the pipe & roof look better, even on a light grey roof, like mine. But olive green? Kinda trailer park IMO
 
I don't get what the issue is other than it being an odd color?? I'd have them spray it with some black or whatever color to match your roof.

All the stove pipe in my house is painted black, it was all stainless. I would paint what is outside as well but I figured it wouldn't stick all that great, plus it's not easy to reach.
 
Well a lot of small business companies have high physical work so they then hire employees to work hard for less. An opening through the roof that is SS to a person who doesn't understand what SS is represents a refund of money. You easily have the information to correct your situation, just from this thread.
 
thanks again for all of the responses. i plan to leave things be and continue to communicate with the roof guy for a satisfactory conclusion. jimbom, as far as i can tell, they did install new flashing, as it was rolled out all over my wife's flowerbed. (i thought she was going to have a cow) fossil, thanks for the advice. usually my first instinct is to correct the problem, but i'll wait a bit after reading your response. realstone and nate, i don't know why it got painted because the pipe looked freaking great. still very shiny, only a little dark near the very top from the heat. i was planning on looking at how to clean that off this spring because, dang it, i liked my shiny stove pipe proudly jutting from the east side of my roof. call me silly, but i like shiny things. i think osburning got it right.

right now this is all very irritating, but i'm just reminding myself that in a few days, or weeks, it will all be resolved. and something else will be irritating me...


ya'll are awesome. thanks once more.
 
You may want to consider cutting your losses and not having them anywhere near your roof again. That is the stupidest thing I have heard in a long time. And, you know what they say..... "You can't fix stupid".
Deduct it from their pay and "say after careful consideration I will take care of the "odds and ends" and fixing my chimney on my own".
If nothing else they may dent it next.

A heat gun sounds like your best bet. If you use any sort of liquid or gel stripping agent the potential run off could make a real mess. For the seams you can get Stainless wire brushes at hardware stores or welding supply shops and get enough paint out of seam it shouldn't be noticeable.

Good Luck, Rob
 
Wow that's a strange one... I've never heard of painting vent pipes either....

A couple more ideas you might try, or ask them to try. Scraping and sanding are out of course for all the reasons discussed. You could try some of the nondestructive methods old house restorers use. One option is an infrared paint remover. Or use a gel stripper like soy-gel. It works like the chemical formulas but is probably mild enough that it won't remove and coating underneath.

Good luck.
 
OMG I do a lot of roofing and paint the plumbing vents etc. to match the shingles, but I would not, have not painted
a ss chimney. What a bunch of idiots.
 
NATE379 said:
I don't get what the issue is other than it being an odd color?? I'd have them spray it with some black or whatever color to match your roof.

All the stove pipe in my house is painted black, it was all stainless. I would paint what is outside as well but I figured it wouldn't stick all that great, plus it's not easy to reach.

kind of with nate on this one.....paint it black, you're selling it anway. its not like it gets hot enough to burn or melt the paint off. or, if its easy to replace that section, pull it and replace it.

jmho

cass
 
It's a chimney system? 3' or 4' sections? Going through a flashing? Seems like, in about 10 minutes you could remove the top two sections, and re-arrange their order, so the ugy painted one is in the attic. No harm, no foul. Or at least none that requires a lawyer.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.