Chimney query

[cotegreen]

Hi, my chimney is in a really poor state of repair and is in desperate need of a partial rebuild. Having taken some off the cement render the stone is far to badly damaged to just render in lime. As such im gong to take it apart and rebuild it properly however the large stone that sits between the stones and the pots and creates the drip edge also needs replacing. Should this Stone be a single piece - hollowed out for the flues or is it seperate pieces? Thanks for any help

[Flyfisher]

I'm guessing that the stone is in pieces as a single large piece that needs to be drilled/hollowed out for the flues would be quite a big job and, I think, unnecessary. When we had a brick chimney rebuilt the drip course was made by simply stepping out the bricks. But I am guessing about stone chimneys.

However, as you plan to carefully take the chimney apart then you'll be able to see exactly how it was built.

[a twig]

Mine was a single piece with two holes cut in for the two pots.

I did note that on a different stack on a neighbouring house a patio slab had been used though

You could definitely do 4 mitred bits of stone though as an alternative though

[cotegreen]

Great thanks for your help, the chimney has defnately had work done previously- very badly so who knos what ill find!

[a twig]

Here's an illustration of a carved one:

[88v8]

Depends how big it is I guess.

The drip coping on one of ours is two pieces. Stonkingly heavy pieces.

It sounds as if you're familiar with lime so I needn't mention that the work will need to be shaded and kept damp. Tricky in this sudden attack of Mediterranean weather.

Ivor

[Feltwell]

Well, as it happens.....

This is a normal view of Feltwell Towers:-



But today it looks more like this:-



As this scary beastie is getting some much needed love & attention:-



Now the crown was in a right old mess, flaunching all shot, and it turns out the 2 chimney pots were just supported on some very corroded and thin iron bars

This was the crown halfway through today:-



In my case, as you can see, it's 4 separate pieces of stone. The 2 larger ones are 'kin heavy, to give it a technical term - so with no easy to hire mobile cranes in years gone by, I'd suggest it's unlikely yours was one piece. Took 2 of us on proper scaffold to lift the edge stones off and rebed them on lime mortar.

Pots now back on and supported on the galvanised steel bars you can see, flaunching now on. I would take a picture of it looking all lovely and finished, but of course in this heat it's all swathed in wet hessian now. It's crackin' flags here today - by'eck it's hot.

Now the crown is rebuilt, next job is lots of repointing and cutting out and replacing deteriorated bricks on the rest of the stack.

Nice view from the scaffold though - can see for miles.

[CliffordPope]

Nice view from the scaffold though - can see for miles.

It's always worth taking lots of photographs from the top of scaffolding - it might be your once-in-a-lifetime chance to record details of the surroundings and also of your roof, garden, etc.
One nice touch our builders pointed out was that apparently it is traditional for builders to scribe their initials and the date in the lead chimney flashing - there were their predecessors from a century ago, now with theirs too added for posterity.

[Craig89]

Your chimney is beautiful from a brickwork point of view it really is!

My mate who did my brickwork for me told me of some lead work he did on an old church and the lead he removed had a mans name and 16** something date in it. He cut that piece out and resecured it to the new piece which he then put his name and date in.

He said he always names and dates chimney flaunching, so I did the same when I did mine.

[Feltwell]

It's always worth taking lots of photographs from the top of scaffolding - it might be your once-in-a-lifetime chance to record details of the surroundings and also of your roof, garden, etc.
One nice touch our builders pointed out was that apparently it is traditional for builders to scribe their initials and the date in the lead chimney flashing - there were their predecessors from a century ago, now with theirs too added for posterity.

At £600 for the scaffolding, I'm hoping it will be a nice view that I don't get to see again for a while!

Yes, I try and leave initials and details of what's been done - when I do sash repairs I'll write something in pencil on a bit of wood and secrete it away, so the next person to repair it may find it. Alas, aside from bits of old newspaper, I've yet to find that anyone has done the same in the past here

Your chimney is beautiful from a brickwork point of view it really is!

Thank you! The chimneys do make the place I think. That one is a bit scary mind, as it's so tall and slender whilst up the scaffolding you can make it perceptibly sway a tiny bit if you give it a shove! It's all solid mind, it's not coming down anytime soon. 22 bricks to cut out & replace though - that's cement pointing for you . We've actually found the top half, from where it steps in, has been taken down and rebuilt with sand & cement at some point - they did a good job, just wish they'd used lime. It's too much to take it down now, and we'd wreck too many bricks doing it, so we're just taking an inch of pointing out and repointing it in lime. The bottom half has a wafer thin layer of cement pointing over lime, so not too bad to do.

Main thing is though, as soon as we took the old flaunching off, we saw where water had been getting in - so *hopefully* it will fix the damp chimney breast problem in the first floor of the house. Ask me in about a year (or so!) when it's dried out and I've redecorated!

[Craig89]

That one is a bit scary mind, as it's so tall and slender whilst up the scaffolding you can make it perceptibly sway a tiny bit if you give it a shove!

Just imagine how Fred Dibnah felt on those stacks 100s of feet in the air, by all accounts they would sway considerably in the wind and yet be perfectly solid and stable

[Feltwell]

Rather him than me!

Here's the chimbley crown hopefully set to withstand a good few years of wind, rain, sun, ice & pigeon poo without further attention:-


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