My chimney sounds like a machine gun, burp gun, for a few seconds

[Martin C.]

Constantly, with just a little wind, my chimney makes burping sounds. Maybe for ten seconds. It has the little spin thingey on top. It's just for the fireplace (which I never use) so it's not a big deal. But I don't know WHAT is making the machine-gun sound.

I know I should snap a video of it but it's intermittent. I will try to video it but it's also short (ten seconds, at most) each time. There's a little wind, and it just happened, but it's not happening now.

Anyway, I realize I'm not giving you much to go on ... but just in case the sound is symptomatic of something (that should be) obvious ... may I ask:

What would make a chimney burp like a machine gun relatively loudly (at about the noise level of a calm conversation) for a couple of seconds at a time in no wind and low wind?

[Don Phillipson]

Metal chimneys are constructed of several separate metal parts, which may have been loosened or broken by water damage. (The OP did not say whether his chimney was metal or masonry.)

[DerbyDad03]

A raccoon? A squirrel? A bird?

[TomC]

"Martin C." wrote in news:jkai42$qc8$ [e-mail]:

I use to have a similar problem and it turned out to be a possessed woodpecker. For some strange reason the darned bird liked the sound. He would peck on the metal chimmney cap. Could count on him to stop by several times during the season and let us know that he was still around. TomC

[Martin C.]

Chimney looks like masonry but there is metal pipe-like stuff on the top.

[Martin C.]

It's a mechanical metal on metal type of sound.

[Martin C.]

If it is a woodpecker, he's pecking on metal! :)

But that 'would' explain the apparent randomness of it all.

[krw]

Sounds like ;-) expansion of the metal against the masonry. It may be acting like a spring when it expands or contracts and is being restricted by the masonry. As it expands (contracts), eventually it breaks free of its restriction (think of an earthquake fault), and is allowed to slide against it. ...or not.

[krw]

They do that. It gets them noticed, not only by you, but their prospective mates (in the next county ;-).

Not so much if some of that "random" is at night.

[RonB]

peranza.aioe.org:

This is exactly what came to my mind when I started reading the OP. If there is any critter that can simulate a machine gun (or I guess a low gutteral BURP) it is a woodpecker.

RonB

[hrhofmann]

@speranza.aioe.org:

I sprayed auto undercoating on my metal chimney cap and it stopped the local woodpecker's matimg calls

[Martin C.]

It's a tile roof. So, I try not to go up there ... if I can help it.

Every time I do, I have to replace the tiles.

Then, I break more as I'm replacing them.

So, I try not to go up there if I can help it.

[Martin C.]

It's re-tile. The really thin stuff. Looks like barrel tile but it's actually flat and barreled at the same time. So you put the flats under the previous barrel. Weird. But that's that.

The problem is this thin re-roofing tile breaks in half if you just look straight at it long enough. Then add my 230-pound frame, and snap! Breaks every time!

I thought you walk on the keystone part (the peak)????

[Martin C.]

It WAS a bird!

Just now, I heard the machine gun. So I ran outside, and lo-and-behold, I spooked a darkish bird (couldn't tell what kind) which flew away off the chimney.

You guys are geniuses!

There is no way I would have figured that out on my own! I wasn't even 'thinking' of an animal. I was thinking it was mechanical somehow.

I'll 'try' to snap a picture at the next machine-gun session!

PS: I don't know what a wood pecker looks like ... but I'll try to first snap a picture.

[Paul Drahn]

Perhaps a red shafted flicker, or a cousin of a different color. The males try to find the loudest thing to hammer on they can find. They are trying to mark a territory to keep other males away.

They have also surprised me by hammering on a metal chimney cover and once I caught one hammering on the sheet metal on my 60" tiller. We hear them lots of times hammering on power poles.

Paul in Central Oregon

[Martin C.]

I didn't see any pretty colors on the woodpecker, so, being in northern California, I'd say, very very tentatively (i.e., a wild guess) that it's a Black-backed woodpecker (because it had no colors that I could see).

Maybe I'll get the BB gun out and see if I can hit it and not the tiles.

[Martin C.]

I only saw it as it flew away so I didn't see any colors other than darkish brown.

I have a camera set and ready to capture it the next time I hear the machine gun in daylight!

[JIMMIE]

Never rule out a mocking bird, we had one at our house for a couple of year= s that sounded like my cellphone. I heard him one morning and thought I had= left my phone on the back porch so I went outside that was when I relized = it was too loud to be my phone. That is when I saw him on the ridge of my r= oof.=20

Jimmie

[krw]

that sounded like my cellphone.

No, they just sound like it. ;-)

About 30 years ago, I had one mocking the beeps from my computer. They were

*really* good a mocking the neighbor's parrots. I thought they'd gotten loose.

I used to get Cardinals to follow along too but of course, their repertoire is much more limited. They're really fascinating to check out across the country. Their songs are so much different from location to location.

[tmurpha1hi]

Maybe your firewood is too spicy. Throw in a few tums with every fire.