Aero Energy has been very responsive to my complaint that the water leak in the roof near the brick chimney that houses the exhaust pipe from my oil burner is caused by windblown rain that gets into the stack, as the gentleman who reroofed my house a few years ago claims. Ramon S. is the latest Aero employee to check out that possibility and tell me that, no, my problem is faulty flashing and sealing around the base of the chimney. My roofer friend, who has twice come by the house and climbed around on the roof and in the attic, where the leak, dripping water along a by-now blackened seam in the plywood sheathing, is very apparent, disagrees, still faulting the contrivance atop the exhaust pipe that, he maintains, permits windblown rain to enter the pipe and insisting that the flashing and sealing around the brick chimney are sound. Ramon S. and Aero seem, to me, to have the better argument, but the roofer intends, now, to prove us wrong by going up on the roof with a garden hose and playing the stream of water on the base of the chimney for as long as it takes to prove his point. Meanwhile, the water-stained, wallboard ceiling in the pantry is looking as if it may not survive the argument.
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