Permission for TV aerial.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you have a house with a chimney stack shared with next door do you need their permission to mount a TV aerial etc on that stack?

[Andy Hall]

I've never come across that through having experience of living in several houses with this in the past and having antennas fitted.

However, I always did mention it as a courtesy.

[George]

At a guess Id say no if its bolted to the part of the chimney that belongs to you.

[Steve Firth]

And what if you secure it using a wire?

[George]

Then don't, use an H bracket and secure it by screws or smallest rawl bolts bought. :-) save a trivial of an argument in the pub

[Andrew Gabriel]

I would have thought it would come under the Party Wall Act, but I doubt anyone bothers with that just for an aerial.

Wires can do a good job of holding manky chimney stacks together, whereas bolting to one side can eventually cause the aerial to pull chunks out of such a stack in a wind, or as a large bird launches itself off the aerial. (If it's not a manky stack now, it may be one day.)

If you bolt it, don't bolt it near the top of the chimney, but do it lower down where you have a good weight of brickwork on top of the supporting bricks. Use a strong rigid pole and avoid a bigger aerial than you need (larger wind resistance) so it won't whip back and fourth on the wind, stressing the mounting brickwork. Use bracket(s) which spread the mounting points over a wide number of bricks. Might be a good idea to avoid using plastic rawl bolts on chimneys which still use their flues.

I put one up a couple of years ago using rawl bolts, and it's still OK. In hind sight, I would have used a more rigid pole and a smaller aerial. I also bought a lashing kit, but I couldn't work out how to get it round the chimney when I basically only had access to one corner of it.

[Vass]

. I also bought a lashing kit, but I

ah ha, you need one of them trained squirrels you do

[Andy Burns]

I used the larger version of this bracket with ratchet tightened strap,

easy to install and gave a secure fix.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You've nearly guessed the source of the question. ;-) It was actually from a barbecue.

But a wire lashing is kinder to the stack - I'd not trust a screwed arrangement on most common sized stacks. Ok on a wall.

[<me9]

Not a good idea, chimneys are not usually big enough to bolt into the bricks securely. A lashing kit (with permission) is the way to go.

[F]

I saw a TV programme a couple of weeks ago in which an aerial expert (expert: x = an unknown quantity, spurt = sustained drip) said that aerials should never be bolted to chimneys as the brickwork is often not strong enough to withstand some of the forces inflicted in heavy winds.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Interesting. A lot more expensive, though.

[Andy Burns]

Yes but I don't have tools or know-how to how to use lashing wire properly, it made sense for a one-off (I'd already saved enough by visiting blake's trade counter)

Also you can fit it from one edge without worrying how to get the corner-plates positioned for the lashing wire, though a mirror on a stick was useful to make sure I'd not got any twists in it.

I believe they sell a re-badged version of the smaller bracket in B&Q, presumably even more expensive ...

[tony sayer]

If you don't have the bottle to do it is a bigger worry. I used to do that on a daily basis many years ago on some very big chimneys but the other month I had to do one as a favour on a semi and it was scary!..

However I don't find a climb up a 40 odd metre mast the slightest worry possibly its that harness which is constantly connected;)

[George]

The reason the lashing kit is a widely used option is because aerial erectors never had cordless power drills or long extension cords in the 60's so therefore the lashing kit was designed and was used commonly from then on.

If you think about it if the chimney is firm a solid bracket and short pole screwed to the chimney brickwork at low level is more solid than a wire strap. How many aerials have you seen on rooves that have come down or lying element down on the roof,why? because the wind rocks it back and forth till it loosens and works its way either up or down into one of the cement courses.

[Andy Hall]

How do those work?

Do you have to keep unclipping them and reclipping them as you climb?

Heights still give me the willies. Anything more than gutter level is out.

[tony sayer]

Some do, some climbers go up then attach their harness, and some don't bother even!. There is a system called "railok" a sort of extrusion section that allows rapid movement up .. but not down. I just use a couple of clips like Karibiners so that one is always connected. Baby walker its otherwise known as;-)

Theres a comms install at the top of Ely cathedral thats quite fun, you have to walk across to it on a ladder some 228 feet above ground level nice view tho!, can be a bit of a bu**er when its windy, nowt on the fens to stop the wind;!.,..

[tony sayer]

Not so on a lot of smaller stacks..

Not quite like that if it does then the wire wasn't tensioned as it ought to have been, or the mast was too tall for the imposed loading. What usually happens is the wire rusts away!. Take it from me there are a lot of chimneys around where the lash wires are holding the bloody thing together because of lack of maintenance !...

[Steve]

Even in the 60's aerial erectors had to drill walls. But even then they had the sense not to drill chimneys. Lashing has been de-facto for chimneys since way before that time by all reputable riggers.

In the 90's when satellite TV came along, and a dish had to be put on a chimney "satellite installers" doing 6 a day changed the rules and put many dishes up using the wall brackets supplied - rather than doing the job properly which would have involved considerable extra work and time. It seems that this practice is catching on...

I believe that Sky had to pay out on some stupid installs that took bricks out of walls (and chimneys)

Completely wrong. Not all chimneys are solid and most are not big or wide enough and with enough courses above to support an aerial bracket which concentrates all the forces into one small area. A lashing however, gains strength by the fact that it is under tension thus compressing the chimney and and forces are concentrated on the corners of the chimney which is best.

I have seen plenty of fallen aerials on roofs. Most have been failures of the mast, bent over in a gust, often because a cowboy has come along and stuck a bigger aerial on mast. Some where lashing has not been done well and has loosened allowing corner damage where the corner plates have damaged brickwork. I have seen plenty of D-I-Y/cowboy jobs that were drilled into chimney that failed. Broken chimney = cash to sort properly. I much preferred to find a broken/stretched/rusted lashing on a sound chimney that could be fixed easily than a broken aerial and chimney together.

Your post was total rubbish. Your advice is dangerous and could lead to D-I-Y's thinking that they could get away with such bodges. Shared chimneys especially, and all the hassle that that could entail.

I am sorry to the regulars here for having a bit of a rant but I think that some of George's posts (whoever he is) are counterproductive to the ethos of this newsgroup and he needs to be corrected to stop any newcomers with a similar sort of question getting the impression that they are getting any sort of informed advice from him.

HTH George and anyone else advocating drilling chimneys ;-)

Steve

[George]

So are you saying the installation engineers who install sky dishes onto the chimney with corner mount brackets are cowboys?

:-)