Hi All,
A question for those of you in the roofing trades. My roofer, whom I have a great relationship with, fabricated this copper roof cap and installed it today while I was not home. Attached are two pictures from the roof, and a picture from within the attic shot up toward the roof cap.
I do like it, but after he installed it, I had a couple of concerns:
1. The first concern was whether the “hat” on top goes out far enough such that during a rain storm with heavy winds, rain can not get blown up and into the screen and leak into the structure.
2. Under this roof cap are three flues. The first flue (vents the furnace and water heater. The second (middle) flue is actually not in use and I’ve not determined what it may have been used for, but it does seem to head all the way down to the basement. Its a new home to me and I’m still figuring some things out. The third flue, which may be a bit hard to see in the last picture vents the kitchen hood. My question here is whether it is OK to have a single roof cap that “houses” all of these flues and whether I should be concerned about CO from the furnace/water heater making making its way down one of the other flues.
3. Last question, as can be seen from the picture in the attic, this roof cap is also open to the attic. The attic does not have much in the way of venting and in a way, this will help keep the attic ventilated, but I’m not sure if this would be the way to do it, especially considering the other gases it is venting.
I’d appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks a lot.
Regards,
Tark
Replies
The cap should be fine for shedding water. However, the top of the chase should be sealed around the three pipes. The flue gasses can drop back into the attic.
copper p0rn
That is quite odd isn't it? The cap looks OK though.
Glad to hear that I should not worry about rain getting in. As for sealing around the three flues, I'll have to call my roofer back. I was hoping that leaving it open to the attic, would serve a dual purpose of venting the attic, as it really needs some venting.Thanks!
I would recommend tracing the source of that "unknown" flue, or else seal it off if you are certain it is a dead end. If is open to the house at any point it can draw air down into the dwelling from the other flues under the right circumstances.
Bath exhaust fans running, Kitchen hood exhaust running, even your furnace drafting can create negative pressure.
Life is Good
From what I can see, it heads almost all the way down to the basement. Considering the age of the house (1941), I was thinking that perhaps it was an old furnace flue. The furnace there now is only a few years old, on what looks like a newer concrete pad. Both the water heater and the furnace flues now connect together in the basement. If I can find it and determine that its been sealed from the bottom, I'm hoping that would be fine.
Edited 10/29/2009 12:22 pm by Tark