water dowm my chimney

puzzlemom01

I recently had my chimney extended because it would back up and fill the house with soot every 3-4 months and i was told it was because it didn't have at least 10 feet of clearance around to top for the draw of the smoke to work correctly. I had the efficiency tested after the new instillation and the tech said it was great and that i shouldn't have any more trouble with smoke. Now when a wind driven rain occurs there is water coming out of the chimney pipe above the boiler. Enough to make LARGE  puddles on the floor. The green light on the starter is flashing and the boiler won't start. What should i do and also what needs to be done to stop the water.

STEVEusaPA

I think you may have 2 problems.

First, do NOT press the resest and fire the burner.  You have to bring your service person out to go over the the burner again.

Secondly, maybe extending your chimney wasnt your original problem with the draft.  Did you have the entire chimney inspected by a competent chimney person.  Draft problems occur for a reason. Maybe there was a blockage.

I think the rain is coming in because you have a hole or crack somewhere in your chimney, maybe the roof flashing was damaged during the chimney extention, or some of the mortar fell out.

What kind of roof? Flat, pitched, steeply pitched? If you could post a pic from the ground, that would help.

Around here (Delaware Co., PA)  the basic code is for the chimney to extend 2 1/2 feet higher then anything within 10 feet.  You may have had something interferring with the currental (sp) draft.

The water is most likely from some damage to the chimney.

The Draft problems could be from a number of issues.  Did something change inside?  New equipment? New construction/remodel? Mechanical room now enclosed?  Any new appliances (dryer, exhaust fan) causing a negative pressure situation and interferring with the draft. Lack of combustion air, or improper burner combusion would cause problems with your draft. 

Quick example, customers burner kept sooting up the house.  This was 3 weeks after cleaning/tune up.  Discovered they just changed the door to the small mechanical room from one with full louvers to a solid door (to reduce noise).  When the burner ran, it quickly ran out of combustion air.

Try to consider all possiblilites.

puzzlemom01

here is the whole story

thanks so much for replying. Last year we had a back 3 season porch put in. Prior to this the exhaust for our boiler came directly out of the back side of our house. Not wanting to smell boiler exhaust on our new porch we had the chimney pipe extended to bring the exhaust up just past the edge of the roof. It was working fine for four months until i came home late one night and the house was filled with this awful smell and there was a black hazy cloud in the basement. We had the boiler cleaned in July prior to the improvement. When the tech came to fix the problem he said that the boiler was so full of soot that he cleaned it the best he could and he would have to come back in about 3 weeks to adjust something as he had to burn the rest of the soot off. He came back and said everything was fine but the same awful smell and cloud incident happened again in December. When he came back he said that the reason that this was happening was that the top of the chimney did not have a 10 foot clearance around it and that the only way to permanently fix the problem was to make it higher. Our roof is pitched at about a 45 degree angle. So we had this done in early June and every thing was fine. The tech came back to check the efficiency and said it was the highest level and that the problem with the soot that we were having should not happen again. About 3 weeks ago we noted some water on the floor after a wind driven  rain storm. At first it was just a bit but now it takes 5 bath sheets to soak up the water. We have electric hot water and since it is the summer the boiler has not been needed so it was not noted that it was not working. . This afternoon i tried to test to see if the boiler would come on by raising the temp that it would kick on to above the room temp at the time and nothing happened. I will be calling the repair tech from out oil co. on Monday but we were thinking that the cap might not be big enough. When we asked the place that the present cap was purchased from he said the one we had was the biggest and that if we wanted a bigger one we would have to have a piece welded onto the one we already had. I didn't think that was such a good idea as it might again change the way the draft operated and we would be right back were we started. These pieces of insulated pipe for this chimney are 100 dollars a foot and have become quiet an expense. The house is only 3 1/2 years old and there has always been a cap on it so i doubt that there was a blockage in the pipe.  All I wanted was a place to hang out without the bugs and enjoy my beautiful mountain view.    UGGGGGG

meplumber

Sounds like Metalbestos

This sounds like a Metalbestos chimney.  Frequently, the weather guard that is installed where the roof boot and pipe meet isn't properly installed.  There is a lip on the weather ring (guard) that catches on the stack.  If this wasn't done correctly, they leak like a sieve.

Jack

Flashing

Either the storm collar on the pipe is leaking or the roof flashing itself is leaking. When installing the storm collar, figure where you want it to sit, remove it and put a liberal bead of silicone on the pipe, push the storm collar down into the goop and tighten it up. Most factory built chimneys have long storm collars and they do an excellent job.

Steamhead

"Not wanting to smell boiler exhaust on our new porch we had the chimney pipe extended to bring the exhaust up just past the edge of the roof"

Sounds like the original installation was direct-vent. The extension may be longer than a direct-vent pipe should be. If so, the burner can't move enough air thru the unit to keep it from sooting up. 



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