My chimney has been up for almost 10 years. It is 8" and I think it is Simpson? It is a twist lock system but appears that the cap is actually 2 pieces - the twist lock piece and then the actual cap connected with a stove pipe style connector. I assume that I should simply screw the two pieces together to prevent this from happening again? The cap is about 10' above a 12/12 roof....so whatever I do I'd like to do it once. I'm hoping to lay the extension ladder on the roof and untwist the two top sections of the chimney and bring it down to do the fix. If that doesn't play out, I'm looking at a lift job.
Turns out the cap was two pieces. One was a piece that locked on to the top of the pipe, then the second piece with the actual cap pushed into it like a piece of stove pipe. The top of the first piece was corroded pretty badly and my guess is there wasn't enough material there to keep the cap on in the high wind we had last night. Four 2" sheet metal screws, no mishaps on the roof and back in business. The hardest part was getting the top 7 feet of the chimney untwisted so that I could get it down to work on it. Best news is I'm very pleased with how clean the stack is
You got some peace of mind while you were repairing your cap, a fairly clean chimney. Glad things worked out for you.
Not too happy about that part. The cap was advertised as stainless but there was obviously some lower grade steel in that connection piece. I hate it when they cut corners in places you cant see.
Also, my original post wasn't meant as a slam on Simpson either way only for information on installation. Checked the stickers on the pipe and this was not a Simpson chimney but rather one of their major competitors. Not too happy about the failure mode either way. Shouldn't happen on this expensive a stack in less than 10 years.
