Thunder and lightning and rain, oh my!

[mikeathens]

Had a pretty good storm blow through here last night (and again today). The wind was so strong that it blew the rain right up under the rain collar on both my woodstove chimney and b-vent for the on-demand water heater. I was walking by the Mansfield and noticed a puddle of water on top of it, and water dripping off of the on-demand heater. First time I've ever had this happen. Anyone else ever have this happen? I am wondering if there's anything easy to do to keep it from happening again.

 

[Tfin]

Maybe try putting a bead of silicone up under the storm collar where it meets the chimney/flashing.

 

[mikeathens]

That's already been done- the rain actually went in through the little vent "slots" built into the flashing, which are there, I presume, to ventilate the space between prefab chimney and framing...shouldn't be blocked off probably.

 

[Tfin]

Gotcha, and you're right.........hmmmm that's a tough one then, those vents do need to be open. So if that's where the rain was coming in the only thing I can think of would be to build some sort of metal enclosure that would encase the flashing/chimney (simple sheet metal rolled into a cylindrical shape with the ends rivited together). It would have to snug up underneith the storm collar and obviously wouldn't be air tight, but should keep rain from blowing up and in.

I would think securing it in place would be the hard part. Just a thought.

 

[MishMouse]

Speaking of Thunder and Lightning..
How safe are these metal chimneys in a storm?
Has anyone had their's struck during a storm?

 

[Ken45]

Speaking of Thunder and Lightning..
How safe are these metal chimneys in a storm?
Has anyone had there's struck during a storm?

My understanding is that lightning will only strike something when it would have struck within twice the height anyway. IOW, a ten foot pole will only get hit if the lightning was going to strike withint 20'. So if it hits your metal chimney, it probably would have hit your house anyway (you probably have metal gutters, wiring in the attic, incoming powerline, etc).

Ken

 

[Henz]

guess we can expect that in our future here then