Last weekend while we were having a hard rain storm, I noticed that after a while, there was water steadily dripping into the fireplace. Then a couple of days later while it was raining again, I noticed that it leaked again. It apparently is coming through the chimney top and not around the flashing where the chimney goes through the roof. Up until the first of June I had a woodstove in the fireplace hole so I don't really know whether it was leaking then or not even though my wife said she thought she had heard rain drops hitting the back of the woodstove. So I don't know how long this has been happening. Since I pulled the woodstove out last month, I had laid a solid metal plate across the top of the chimney underneath a make shift chimney cap I have sitting up there to try and keep my a/c air from going up the chimney. I just don't see how rain could get around that metal plate and leak into my fireplace. Does anyone know where the water could be coming from and what I might need to do to fix the problem ?

Another question I have is on my chimney, I do not have a clay flue like I see in pictures on most web sites. Mine is just a big open hole. Is this something I need to have installed ? Ever since I have used this fireplace it has always had a problem of smoke coming into the house on windy days. Could this be caused by not having a smaller flue hole instead of the great big one I have now ?