I saw something interesting inspecting a home yesterday.

[Snipe Hunter]

Sorry, no pics.

Every house in the neighborhood was built by the same builder around 1973. They all had insulated metal chimneys coming off brick fireplaces. The flue was in a framed chimney chase running up through the garage , through the roof. The fireplace is in the adjacent family room.

Every chimney chase on every house was leaning about 2 degrees. The framing was supported by roof trusses and apparently they aren't strong enough. Because of the leaning, it's buckling the roof and pushing the trusses making them lean. It's causing severe water leaks in the garage causing rot in the trusses, plywood and chimney chase.

 Nobody on the whole street has fixed them, they're all leaning. They just keep patching the leaks in the roof.

It's a pretty nice neighborhood too.

[Bob10]

sounds like an opportunity for someone.  The first one will be the hardest sale but if like you said it is a nice neighborhood the rest will follow along.  I would bet most have no idea why the darn things are leaking.  Yet when they do repairing it correctly is money in the bank and hopefully before mold gets started to any large degree

[Snipe Hunter]

They all know about it and they aren't doing anything about it. You can't help but notice them when you drive up the street.

[Bob10]

then can't be that great of neighborhood.

[Snipe Hunter]

It's actually a pretty decent neighborhood, It's in Silver Spring Md. Not cheap there.

Here's pic of the chimney chase inside the garage.

[packerguy®]

I enjoy when Mike Holmes points out the same things. He will say look how this is built, now look around the neighborhood...and they have the same issues and dont know.

---

It's actually a pretty decent neighborhood, It's in Silver Spring Md. Not cheap there.

Here's pic of the chimney chase inside the garage.

That looks like a mess.

[Bob10]

Looks like black mold and a potential health issue most good areas around me have people smart enough to avoid that type thing if they can.

[Phil Thien]

So what is the fix?  Sounds like anyone wanting to correct the problem would need new shingles when done, as wouldn't you have to go in through the sheathing?  I can't imagine you can replace/beef-up trusses w/o tearing the shingles off. Can you just fix the trusses around the chase?

[atgcpaul]

Just curious, where in Silver Spring?  My parents used to live in a neighborhood of similar age.

[Bob10]

I would imagine they could go to ground  or the brick instead of hanging off the roof.  Might even be able to remedy it by sistering up to what is in place
Possibly with steel or aluminum if wood wouldn't get it done.