Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - fireplace construction

Help!! My fireplace leaks water through the ashpit door in a heavy rain. I had a contractor look at it and he said that the leak appears to be that the foundations of the chimmey has broken apart. there is no water coming from the top of the chimmey. The water comes through the ash pit door in the basement. The ashpit door is aprox 1 foot from the ground level. I want to no how is this repaired? Should the contractor dig all the way down to the foundation and seal or replace it?

Begrego,

Not seeing what is going on or what exactly the site conditions are, I would go with what the contractor saw and hopefully suggestions on how to repair it.

My thought is that if the pit door is 1 ft above grade, it may not be the problem. If you have lived here awhile and it has not happened before, then I suspect another problem has occured. Grade issues, landscaping, gutter/downspout issues, crack in foundation, etc. If the pit door is the problem, simple repairs can be done to this.

All assumptions but call another contractor to get another opinion.

Good Luck!

Thank you Doug for your reply. I lived in this house for 17 years and it it has been leaking for the pass 14 years. I had several contractors come all with different ways of fixing the problem. The fix varired from drilling a whole in the basement floor, installing a sump pump and reseal around the base of the fireplace too Adding back the dirt that had erroded around the fireplace with dirt and gravel building up the area and sloping it for proper dainage. still :confused: