A Public Liability (pictures)

[Andy Burns]

I think they've missed a sales opportunity there, to smear mortar over the neighbour's crumbling bricks as well ....

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Graham. escribió:

[pamela]

It's the sort of picture sequence a newspaper might publish.

[Graham.]

Here is a closeup I took in 2014

What would be the recommended way of taking it down?

[Andy Burns]

Huffing and puffing should suffice.

[MrCheerful]

Start with some professional scaffolding, netting and a skip.

[RayL12]

As costly as it would be, for the best of reasons, it should have a good stage all around it. That would certainly put a lump on the cost.

As I said, I have played this game and trying to remove any one thing from the stack would cause something else to move. Very dangerous. I was a re-roofer/builder and, I would only take on this type of job as part of the whole.

I have stripped a roof back to find that such a stack as this had the stack removed from below. Nothing supporting it other than the party wall.

[harry]

I would remove it brick at a time and drop them down the chimney. Wife at the bottom with a plastic bucket takes them outside.

[rick]

Took mine down on previous house by putting skip close to house and threw bricks direct into skip. Noisy - but none missed.

That stack needs replacing ....

[MrCheerful]

Great series of pictures, the little detail I love is the aerolelastic securing the ladder to the window frame, they obviously take health and safety very seriously.

Have you contacted the council about this, they have inspectors for jobs like this and would probably take enforcement action so the job was done properly.

[tony sayer]

Surly that was a scaffold job and remove and rebuild stack?..

Those pots with the "H" arrangement on top must weigh a ton!

[harry]

I did try that once. You only have to miss once and you smash a slate/tile.

[MrCheerful]

Once it is scaffolded the bricks can be lowered in buckets or dropped down one of those snakey chute things. IME dropping them down the chimney causes more problems than it solves, they jam or crack plaster showing up even more weaknesses you have to fix.

[RayL12]

Bricks down the flue were the norm if the house is being ripped out.

When I worked for a company in my early days, I was phoned up by my boss and co worker at 18:00 ish.

He was in a mess. He said he has been phoned by the female owner of the house we stripped and re-slated that day. H e wanted me to go with him while they discuss the disaster that had occurred.

It seems that, as we hammered through out the day, we had dislodged the soot in a small stack on the gable wall. Below was an open fireplace.

Entering the living room was surreal. In spite of 2 ceiling lights being on, everything was black except the people. Outlines of things were invisible. It was an absolute weird setting. When eventually, a piece of furniture was pushed aside, the colour of the carpet below was almost blinding in contrast.

Our lad was a good soul and he had some friends in business who took care of the cleaning. I believe everyone was happy.

Where do you put the blame?

We did a complete up and over re-strip in 6 hours. Cash in hand. He wasn't too worried about the money. Just that everything would be as it was.

...Ray.

[RayL12]

Yeah. Clumsy more than anything. I was more thankful that a could do it on a stripped roof with the new felt and lathes laid. Made getting on the ladder a lot easier. Rarely I did them in isolation. I consider myself very fortunate, in my 16 years, that a did not cause damage or harm. It was the 80,s 90,s. Very rare you saw a scaffold on a domestic job. Only once was I approached by H&S and, as you could then, I told her to go away.

...Ray.

[alan_m]

When I had my stack done in the late 80s scaffolding was erected but when the brickies turned up they refused to go up until the scaffold company returned to put in an extra stage of diagonal poles. I went up to look at the stack before it was removed/rebuilt and it was a lot worse condition than could be seen from the ground - the only thing holding it together above the roof line was gravity and the aerial cable.

[tony sayer]

I expect Bill Wright could tell a tale or many on that!

When i were a lad i had sometimes to assist the aerial rigger and once we were removing an old aerial, cut the wire and most of the stack collapsed and started off on a journey down the steep slate roof taking a few slates and then dumping itself over a rather nice convertible car that was right in line;!

The insurance company coughed, tho it wasn't deemed our fault!

[RayL12]

Yeah, that could often be the case, Alan. All delicately balanced. I have seen the remains of a collapsed stack; ..in the cellar.

...Ray

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , RayL12 escribió:

Capping chimneys became popular when open fires went out of vogue. Most builders just dumped the detritus down the chimney.