Expert: James Ball - 5/23/2011

Question
About 5 years ago I got my house re-roofed with metal shingles that are guaranteed for life. However, I now find that I have gotten corrosion that has eaten through the paint and is now rusting the shingles in spots around (mainly below) my class A chimney. I'm getting them replaced, but would like to prevent further problems with the new ones.
    I believe that creosote is the culpret. I realize that regularly cleaning the chimney cap might help, but mine is very high above a steep 12/12 roof--no way to access without building a scaffold. (I clean the chimney with a brush on a rod from below, screwing on additional rod sections to reach the top) Can you think of any good solution? I wondered whether a different chimney cap, which would set higher off the top of the chimney, would help. My stove is a 20-year-old Quadrafire, which was supposed to be very efficient when I bought it; but would there be better ones now that would be enough better at reducing creosote, to be worth buying? Any other ideas? Thanks--Tom

Answer
Hello Tom, not sure what you have happening there is there an OIl fired unit in or near that chimney? (oil does this a lot rare to hear of it with creosote), you might need to clean the chimney more often, a different cap, cleaning the cap when cleaning the chimney maybe a cherry picker? I would have a local Certified Chimney Sweep www.csia.org, (there you can look up by zip code to find one near you) take a first hand look at what you have, they should be able to help.
Hope this helps
James