Yes, the chimney pipe. And yes the vertical seam was caulked.
Cold Air Intake Pipe
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Get up in the attic and figure out where the water is coming from. It may be flowing down your roof deck and not have anything to do with your pipe at all.
It's possible that working on the stuck, telescoping stove pipe moved chimney pipe a little and broke the seal at the storm collar. If so, scrape off the old sealant, clean, and then apply a new bead of good quality sealant like GE Silicone 2.
That would be hard since there's no attic. The stove is on the ground floor but this photo is taken from a second story skylight. The ceilings are vaulted. In any event, the water is coming from inside the chimney pipe so it wouldn't be coming off the roof deck unless it were flowing right into a hole in the chimney pipe. There's no box surrounding the chimney pipe.
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It's going to be a big job because my stove pipe extends high above the roof. There's no way to reach it other than taking it apart or with a cherry picker, and there's no room for a cherry picker near my home. So someone -- probably a couple of guys -- are going to have to take the pipe apart and lower the top section or two.
I suppose I could first have someone try to just caulk it from the outside really thoroughly assuming there's a long pole that can attach to a caulking gun. I've no idea if such a thing exists.
Why take it apart? It may be just the bottom section where it enters the roof that needs attention.
I had a guy come out and look at it. He looked up the chimney with a flashlight and said the water's coming in at least in part from the top. He thinks it's the cap. I'm waiting to get an estimate of what it will cost to remove the pipe to replace the cap and reinstall it. The guy said he may want to increase the size of a guard just above where the chimney enters the roof.
The problem is there's no way to inspect it from the top without taking down the top section, which is a two-man job. Unless someone has a really sophisticated drone. There's no room for a cherry picker and it's way up over the roof. It originally wasn't that tall. They were trying to address my draw problem. It helped a bit. But now that I'm putting in a reburn stove, rather than the catalytic BlazeKing that was pulled out, maybe I should have them remove a section and make it easier to service in the future. Do you have a sense of which might be better?
Fine use a drone, whatever. Otherwise it's just guessing. If the guy that said it may need a new cap is honest and is just spitballing until he gets up there and sees what necessary, then ok. It's hard to tell.
The leak is new, right? If so, best to look at what has changed. Most likely this is happening on the outside, not inside the pipe. If the storm collar seal has been broken, that's the likely suspect. I don't know enough about which drone close focusing range to know if can spot the issue, but maybe. A good, certified sweep should be equipped to go up there. What he will find is TBD.
Unfortunately there's no way up there. The pipe has to be partly disassembled. I don't know for sure when the leak began. It might be when they put the new cap on. The cap is certainly a suspect.
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