Gotta love owning a home!

Monday night - DH drives home and notices as he's pulling onto our street that our chimney is hanging off the roof. A neighbor meets him in the driveway to inform him that it blew off during the wind/rain storm.

DH calls his father and he advises not to wait on it and to have a chimney guy come right away. So, we find someone through the pennysaver and they give us an estimated price over the phone.

Tuesday VERY AM - The fireplace co. comes on Tuesday morning at 7:30am. They go up on the roof and needless to say, that estimated price they provided went through the roof (no pun intended!). They advised us that the chimney and pipe inside to the boiler weren't installed incorrectly and there was acid all over the place within the pipe and the chimney. They corrected the entire issue, plus fixed our roof up at the point of entry and boy was it $$$$, but thank goodness the issue was cleared up.

Now we have to go through our homeowner's insurance since it was storm damaged to see if they can help pay the cost of the repairs.

ETA: Correct spelling

Message edited 1/27/2010 4:04:36 PM.

Re: Gotta love owning a home!

Re: Gotta love owning a home!

SHouldn't they have found that issue when they did the engineer report on your home?

I know they're never liable, but just curious!

Sorry but glad you got it fixed....

Re: Gotta love owning a home!

Re: Gotta love owning a home!

we had an issue of our chimney not being hooked up correctly when they switched from gas to oil in 1980. we had a chimney sweep come in for our fireplace first week in and they said you have a problem your vent for your gas boiler was never switched to a new liner so its crumbling.

$2,000! We had to do it because we were getting carbon monoxide read outs. Our inspector told us we needed a new damper but said he can not comment about the contents inside chimneys and only did visual outside inspections so it really depends on what your inspection includes. BUT if your chimney was pulling or crumbling that carries into a visual inspection and should of been noted.

Re: Gotta love owning a home!

Something very similar happened to my mom years ago. During a really bad storm, we think that the chiminey got hit by lightning because all of a sudden she had a huge chunk of the top part of the chiminey (bricks and all) in the backyard. So, I think she did what you did....obviously called to have it fixed. When she called her home owners, I believe they did refund the money....but then a month or 2 later they dropped her policy for putting in a claim. Meanwhile, she had been with them for years. I'm not 100% sure of what ins company it was so I don't want to say anything against the company in case it's not the one I'm thinking of but it was def a big name company. It's totally ridiculous what they do to homeowners - what they charge to fix things - as in your case - and then how the insurance companies react....like what the heck are we paying them for then?!?!?

Hopefully, you have a better ins company then my mom. But I agree - what a headache! Thankfully no one got hurt from it though!!