Beecher prefab fireplace: replacing a rusted chase cover before it ruined the firebox

By Jacob Dove, Friendship Chimney Sweep

The tell

A homeowner in one of Beecher’s late-1990s subdivisions noticed orange streaks running down the vinyl siding beneath the chimney chase. That is almost always the chase cover, the flat metal lid on top of a framed prefab chimney. Builders install galvanized covers because they are cheap, and galvanized steel rusts from any edge or screw hole where the coating is broken. Water pools on a flat cover, sits against the rusting edge, and eventually goes through.

What we found on the roof

The cover was perforated along two edges and around the flue collar. Water had been dripping into the chase and onto the top of the factory-built firebox. The firebox top was rusting but not yet through, and the insulation in the chase was wet. Another year or two and the firebox itself would have been compromised, at which point the unit is done: a rusted-through firebox cannot be repaired and the fireplace has to be replaced.

The replacement

We measured the chase on site, to the sixteenth of an inch, and fabricated a stainless steel cover with a cross-break, a shallow peak so water runs off instead of pooling, a proper skirt down the sides of the chase, and a raised collar around the flue pipe with a storm collar above it. Stainless does not rust, the cross-break means no standing water, and the collar keeps water off the pipe joint. We dried out the chase, checked the flue pipe joints and the cap, and the fireplace is fine. The homeowner will not think about the chase cover again, which is the goal.

If this sounds like your house: we handle chase covers, caps and crowns across Kankakee County, and our Beecher page covers what we usually find there. Call (815) 449-4264, 7am to 9pm, any day.

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