Installing a Cricket

A cricket is like a tiny gable roof section which is installed behind a chimney (on the “roof side”) to keep water running down the roof from puddling up behind the chimney and potentially causing a leak. The presence of the cricket diverts water out from behind the chimney and off the roof.

Here’s how Barnhill Chimney installed a cricket on the chimney of a house with a metal roof in spring 2011.

This happens to be a metal chimney cricket, made to match the house’s metal roof. Crickets on shingled roofs are installed in a similar way, but of course they are topped off with shingles to match the rest of the roof.

: The chimney before we started.

: First, we carefully pull up the metal roofing and put it aside so we can put it back on later.

: Now we build a support frame for the cricket and bolt it to the chimney and the roof.

: The plywood cricket frame installed. This will support the metal top of the cricket, which will match the roof.

: Here’s the metal top of the cricket, installed. It has been painted to match the roof.

: All finished! The roof has been reinstalled around the cricket and all the seams have been caulked.