i don’t think any of the crew had heard about cement eating copper flashing and staining the shingles around the chimney.most of the time it’s drystack rock and dosn’t react enough for a callback. but we forgot again and have stains on the shingles..my question is can we seal the mortar joints somhow to stop this or do we have to rip out my beutiful flashing and replace?with what? the boss likes copper ’cause it’s fancy..
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Everone 'round these parts seems to use copper for high end.
In addition, I distinctly recently recall an uscale "shangle" ad in one of the trade mags that had very nicely done stepped counterflashing let into brick mortar. It was copper (least that's what I remember).
What color are the stains (I assume green)? Is it really that bad?
I think your other option is lead. A lot of the older cathedrals use lead and it seems to have held up pretty well for many hundreds of years. OTOH, if the client is freaked by lead getting onto the soil from rain runoff, you're stuck.
"Let's get crack-a-lackin" --- Adam Carolla
no, white stains,green shingles.sent the poor mason back to wash with muratic 'icid' and green spray paint.stains will not wash off.thought it was something in the mortar bleeding out..lead mightbe just fine,folks we build for arn't really conserned about anything but themselves let alone the 'enviornment'..they are sensitive about their damn shingles turning white,i sure do dread getting that copper outa' there!
Whtie stains is efflorecance from the masonry, has nothing to do with the copper.
Agree with jayzog. Copper won't get you white stains as far as I know. Lime will.
Also, check out Mr. seeyou's website (link at the bottom of his posts on this board). Everything made of copper and beautiful work.
"Let's get crack-a-lackin" --- Adam Carolla
Yeah, I don't think it has anything to do with the copper. I've seen this happen on occasion with limestone. There's some sort of reaction going on inside the chimney (water is entering above the flashing somewhere and getting forced back out at the flashing. The result would be the same regardless of the flashing material. You've got other problems - dry stack lets in a lot of water.
http://grantlogan.net/
o.k.,great,the copper stays,the boss can point fingers at the mason,and i'll turn my attention to my next question..b.t.w. both chimneys were with heavy mortar joints,one was river rock and the other was some fancy pattern with rock and brick and about two inches of mud'. thanks for everyones help
Its not the masons fault, it is just the way it is.
Mortor will soak up water and"cry" often, the good news is that after a few good "crys" it normally will stop.
Most masonry supply yards sell cleaners to remove the efflorecence that work well, then replace a few shingles.