Author – Marge Padgitt
Have your masonry or manufactured chimney inspected by a professional chimney sweep after storm damage by tornado, lightning, hail, microburst, hurricane, or high wind.
Signs of storm damage to a masonry chimney may include brick pieces or full bricks lying on the ground or on the roof, fresh cracks in the chimney, or blown out sections of the chimney. Lighting usually strikes chimneys at the top and travels down, then exits at some point which can be found in the exterior or interior.
There can be massive interior damage by a lightning strike that is not visible from the exterior. Hail damage usually results in brick or stone face damage and damage to chimney covers. In the case of a microburst or tornado the chimney can actually be lifted up and moved to another location inches away. If this happens, the chimney needs to be torn down and rebuilt.
Manufactured chimneys and fireplaces should be inspected after a storm for blown out sections, damage to the cover, metal chase top, wood chase, metal chimney, and fireplace.
Metal chimneys can become warped, buckled, or detached after a lighting strike or high winds.
~ Marge Padgitt
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4 thoughts on “Chimney Repair – Storm Damage”
Can a chimney be pushed from a home because of high winds like we experienced on August 10th
A chimney is an interesting thing. In a fire, often times the only part of the home or structure remaining is the chimney. Yet, sometimes, even the chimney has been destroyed; not necessarily by the fire itself, but by other factors involved, even those necessary to extinguish the fire.
The same sort of thing can happen with a chimney in a violent wind storm. Remember, a properly installed chimney should maintain a certain amount of clearance from combustibles – like the house itself. Thus, there is no reason that a violent wind cannot topple a chimney.
Earthquakes are also known to cause great damage to chimneys as those in earthquake-prone areas will attest.
Can high winds blow down a metal wood stove chimney?
If by ‘blow down’ you mean air moving down the chimney into the room then, yes, it can.
A flow reversal can be caused by high winds but it usually requires another contributing factor. The chimney can be too short in relation to the roof line, dormers or other parts of the structure. Other buildings, hills or tree lines can also cause a pressure ridge which can overpower the natural draft of the chimney.
However if by ‘blow down’ you mean ripping the chimney off the side of the building then the answer is still “yes, but”. If the chimney was properly installed, the attachment points aren’t rotted and the chimney isn’t severely rotted it’s extremely unlikely. A round cylinder of the size we normally use doesn’t have much wind resistance so it would take a LOT of wind to take it down.
I would expect significant damage to the rest of the house with that much wind.