I installed my chimney in 2005 and as most of you know it runs pretty hard 7 months of the year 24/7. This Summer I pulled the stove out for some maintenance...then a little life happened and i didn't get around to it for a while. During that time, I was a little dismayed to find water where the stove usually sits - not a whole lot and seemed to require a pretty heavy rain to make it happen. Yesterday, I pulled the chimney down to get a look at the cap and was surprised to find significant corrosion in what I thought was a product that was designed/built specifically not to and also not to leak. I ended up ordering both a new cap and ceiling adapter. This undoubtedly is also the source of the corrosion in the top of the stove. I'm not a pro just a guy heating his house with wood and wont flame the manufacturer (one of the big ones) but am I unreasonable to expect more than this? Or, should I just add this to the list of things that I need to be more on top of in life?
cant do that without flaming the manufacturer...which isnt my point as I have to assume all the big ones are relatively equivalent. If I wasnt so invested in the 20 ft of 8" pipe that appears to be in relatively good shape, I might have a discussion around alternative manufacturers but the replacement parts are already on order and should ship this morning. In the rain cap, the intersection between the inner pipe and the downward slope had ever so slightly started to rot. In the adapter between the top of the stack and the cap, the majority of anything inside was just gone. The ceiling adapter was rotted to the point that the pipe likely would have landed in my living room if not for the roof flange.
As far as your title, I expect more. I expect a lifetime of zero rot or corrosion when I buy a stainless steel class A chimney. As in no deterioration at all and that's just what I get. Water leaking into a ceiling box and then the ceiling box rotting is not the fault of the ceiling box. Water leaking in from above is a failure. It could be a seam, installation mistake (storm collar), roof flashing mistake, but I can't imagine that the manufacturer intended for their product to melt away in the rain.
It definitely started up top, as the horizontal parts of the adapter between the top of the pipe and the cap were rotted and all the water I saw was coming down the pipe. The vertical surfaces are all ok but it looks like any horizontal spot where the water could collect eventually rotted including the ceiling adapter. Maybe I just got a bad cap and didnt notice the warning signs until it was too late. Kinda like that explanation as those replacement parts werent cheap and I hope the probability of getting two bad caps is pretty low.
