Flashing & Chimney Repair Across the Springfield Area
Flashing is the sheet metal that seals every place your roof meets something else: a chimney, a sidewall, a vent pipe, a skylight, a valley. It covers a small fraction of the roof and causes most of the leaks. Summit Roofing has been repairing flashing and chimney leaks across the Springfield area since 1985, and on roof leak calls it’s the first place we look.
Why Flashing Fails Before Shingles Do
Metal moves. Every sunny afternoon expands it, every cold night shrinks it, and that daily cycle works fasteners loose and fatigues sealant joints until they split. A thirty-year shingle is often paired with a sealant bead that’s good for ten.
The other problem is shortcuts: counter flashing surface-mounted with caulk instead of cut into the mortar, one long bent strip where step flashing belongs, or roofing tar smeared over a joint and called a repair. Tar bakes hard, cracks, and leaks again in a year or two, and it makes the proper fix messier when we get there.
Chimney Flashing, Done Right
A chimney gets a two-part system. Step flashing weaves into each shingle course and turns water onto the roof. Counter flashing is cut into a mortar joint above it and laps down over the step flashing, so water running down the brick can’t get behind anything. When we rebuild chimney flashing, that’s what you get, bent and fitted on site.
Wide chimneys need one more piece: a cricket, the small peaked saddle on the uphill side that splits water around the stack instead of letting it pond behind the brick. Missing crickets are something we find on a lot of older homes, and ponded water back there rots decking fast.
Not every chimney leak is flashing, though. A cracked crown or soft mortar joints let the masonry itself soak up water like a sponge and weep into the house. We repair everything on the roof side and tell you plainly when what you actually need is a mason.
The Rest of the Flashing on Your Roof
- Pipe boots. The rubber collar around each vent pipe splits after 10 to 15 years of sun. Cheap to replace, expensive to ignore, and usually found right above a bathroom ceiling stain.
- Step flashing at sidewalls. Each shingle course gets its own piece tucked behind the siding. We see whole walls flashed with one continuous strip, and they all leak eventually.
- Kick-out flashing. The small piece at the bottom of a roof-to-wall joint that throws water into the gutter. When it’s missing, water runs behind the siding and quietly rots the wall below.
- Valley metal. Corroded or nailed-through valleys leak under heavy flow. New valley metal goes down over ice and water shield so the channel has a second line of defense.
- Drip edge. The metal at the roof edge that keeps water off the fascia and out from under the first course. Missing drip edge shows up later as rotten fascia boards.
- Skylight flashing. Reflashing cures most “leaky skylights.” When the unit itself has failed, our skylight installation crew replaces it.
What a Repair Visit Looks Like
We inspect the full joint, not just the spot that’s dripping, and photograph what we find. You get an exact price before any work starts. The repair uses new metal bent to fit on site, fastened and sealed the way the assembly was designed, and you keep the photos of the finished work.
Flashing & Chimney Repair in Your City
We serve Riverton and Maplewood too. View all service areas, or call (555) 123-4567 and we’ll take a look before the next storm does.