Hi all, So I've recently discovered that my masonry chimney has been leaking water onto the sheathing in my attic. A lot of wood rot repair there which is another post for another day. First things first, stop the leak. From my inspection it looks to be not the flashing (which I initially expected) but the chimney itself. Looks like the blocks are becoming over saturated with water (I live in the Pacific Northwest so it's wet). The wet bricks are then wicking the water to the sheathing (there was no vapour barrier in between the masonry and the wood) thus making it wet and then the rot starts (this is my theory anyways). Who knows how long this has been going on, I've only owned the house for 2 years and foolishly missed fully inspecting the chimney area when I bought the place. First house so I was bound to make mistakes. In the exposed chimney above the roofline there are some areas I'll need to tuckpoint. I was more wondering about the crown which sits above the chimney opening. It's solid with no cracks but looks worn and is rough. Should I coat this maybe with a latex paint to seal it up or use the mason mix I'm using for the tuckpointing? Could this be a major area where the water is seeping in? Also the horizontal faces of the blocks at the opening of the chimney underneath the crown are rough and pitted and look like they'd easily soak up water in the winter (we get a lot of sideways rain). Should I seal those up with latex paint or cover with mason mix or maybe another suggestion? I've attached some pictures for reference. [url=ftp://im56sean@www.superklever.com/superklever.com/projects/diy/image1.JPG] [/url] Definitely a noob to all of this. Any directions or tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Got an old cabin built in 1936 with a septic tank, don't know how old the tank is but I'm thinking pretty old. I've owned the cabin 15 years and when I bought it the seller said if I wanted to make a holding tank out of it he would change it right there and then. I decided to keep it as a septic tank but I'm selling the place and new rules require than any septic tank is to be changed to a storage tank. I was going to give the seller the same option I had but I've looked at the area where the tank is buried and all I see there are two 6 inch diameter pipes sticking up out of the ground about a six inches. One of them looks to have what looks like a very large castellated nut screwed into the end of it. The other one just has what looks like some tin sheeting wrapped around the top and fastened with stainless steel hose clamp. To me they look like inspection ports but I'm just guessing. Does anyone have any idea what the seller was talking about. Thanks