Buckling and Crowning... In the Same Room?!

Now that was a fun inspection. It started as an HVAC-related hardwood floor issue so I had to be careful what tools I took on the airplane with me compared to what the client had. I know things aren't always as they are described, but I guessed pretty good on what tools to take. Flying is getting to be more and more fun, isn't it?

This house had both buckled and crowned 3/4" solid nail-down floors in the same room. So my question this week is; how can that happen? Relatively new house, crowning in an area beside the fireplace and buckling down the center of the same room. Semi-finished basement underneath, ducts in the floor above the basement, with furnace and AC in the basement.

Well, it turns out that the buckling wasn't an HVAC issue. It was a fireplace issue. The house has a wrap-around porch, with the chimney running up through the porch roof, up the side of the house and extending above the peak of the roof a couple feet. It has a stone facade on the outside of a framed chase around the metal flue pipe.

Some testing, poking, prodding and even a little borescope work indicated a water leak at the chimney. So I went outside for a look-see. Well, the section of chimney below the roof peak had separated from the part above the peak, and had dropped and leaned away from the house a couple inches. The part below the porch roof was fine. It turns out that the rock facade was built on the porch roof, with no modification to the roof for the weight of the rock. Over the few months of existence, the porch roof had sagged under the weight, causing the chimney to drop and lean. And leak. And the leak affected the floor. (But that doesn't explain the crowning. Another question for you: What does it mean when your pinless meter reads lower on a crowned board than on the rest of the floor?)

Fixing the floor is one thing. Fixing the chimney is going to be a whole 'nother story.