My brick Fireplace chimney has a metal weather cap which is concreted on the top of the chimney. The top of the weather cap has rusted causing the dome of the cap to rattle in the wind and the noise from the rattle can be noticeably heard inside our house. I'm hoping to lean a ladder against the the brick chimney on my roof to get up to the cap to make repairs. Is leaning a ladder against the brick a good idea?

I work at heights often but I'm not a home builder so I don't want to make the mistake of assuming the brick will support all 230 pounds of me. Thanks.

Blindly, it's tempting to say A-OK but really there's not enough data & no images to even suggest what construction is afoot that might even suggest support.

Now turning to the problem at hand, it's an EZ bet that this metal's noise is due to corrosion from fire residue & weather is making loose a part that makes a raquet saying to you .... hey, this is not a simple glue me down solution, this is a replace me now, hopefully with a superior product!

Which leads us to side stepping an answer to what might be now a moot point, since the best & most permanent repair would be to select a top drawer replacement part with a chimney/fire pro, who will install it in a better way than a novice. Hopefully bonder/insured and no hospital bills, aches & pains for Christmas this year.

No. Do not lean your ladder against a masonry structure like a chimney without any knowledge of the integrity. There is a very good reason pointing services exist. Your chimney may Infinity Roofing may not be safe. I'd go up the roof if you can.

I figured leaning a ladder against it was a no go but I'm pretty stumped on how to get up there.

I'm not opposed to getting a professional to replace/repair it. However, I'm located in El Campo and I don't really know if anyone who does this type of work in the area. I tried googling yesterday and the results were sketchy at best. I'll keep looking for a business in the area who would be capable of type of repair or plan b is rent a man basket to get me up there next to it without touching the chimney.

I will try to post photos here but I've never had much luck getting pictures onto Texags.

We had a guy come out in Houston to do ours(2 story) last year, he used a ladder to get to the roof then a smaller step stool to get from the roof to the top of the chimney. I would not do it myself

It's PROBABLY ok but you can't really check that unless you just do it and that's not worth the risk. Even if you don't injure yourself, you might damage the chimney and now you're in a bigger pickle. That's what I said that. The issue is two fold, if you will.

If you want to be cautious, you can rent enough scaffolding or a scissor lift to get to your chimney cap.

Personally, I just built a scaffolding out of 2x material that was partially ground supported and partially supported by my roof when I needed to demo the grouted chimney cap on my masonry fireplace to form and pour a new one.

But I have definitely leaned a ladder against it a time or seven as well. If the ladder angle is fairly steep, the horizontal load applied to the chimney gets pretty light...

Aggietaco said:

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If you want to be cautious, you can rent enough scaffolding or a scissor lift to get to your chimney cap.

Personally, I just built a scaffolding out of 2x material that was partially ground supported and partially supported by my roof when I needed to demo the grouted chimney cap on my masonry fireplace to form and pour a new one.

But I have definitely leaned a ladder against it a time or seven as well. If the ladder angle is fairly steep, the horizontal load applied to the chimney gets pretty light...

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Scissor lift is probably safest if you can reach it from the ground.

Scaffolding has a real possibly to work here because I have access to some free of charge and I think I can get the scaffolding within arms reach to the top of the chimney pretty easily.

Scissor lift would be tough as I have to drive it thru the yard to get to the Fire Place and my experience has been not good with Scissor Lifts and off-roading.

A boom lift would be the simplest as I could position it with my truck but I would also have to rent one.

2 or more sheets of 3/4 ply make scissor lift offroading pretty simple.

I would recommend you get the entire chimney and fireplace inspected. My chimney cap had been damaged by a hail storm before I bought it, and it was dented enough to allow water to pool on top of it and leak down the chimney pipe. It rusted out the fireplace and it's now unsafe to actually use the fireplace. We decided to seal it off with a solid cap until we have enough money to replace the entire fireplace ($10k+)

If you have rust on the cap, there may have been leaking internally as well. I'd recommend you get a professional to check it out before burning wood in it.

Aggietaco said:

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If you want to be cautious, you can rent enough scaffolding or a scissor lift to get to your chimney cap.

Personally, I just built a scaffolding out of 2x material that was partially ground supported and partially supported by my roof when I needed to demo the grouted chimney cap on my masonry fireplace to form and pour a new one.

But I have definitely leaned a ladder against it a time or seven as well. If the ladder angle is fairly steep, the horizontal load applied to the chimney gets pretty light...

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This brings up another safety issue