How strong are chimney stacks?

Tim Watts · 2015-01-14T15:29:44+00:00

I have a defunct stack which goes up through the hip face of the roof, is about 2x3 ft wide/deep and projects some 12 ft above the tiles including pots. The reason I ask is tonight we have 63mph winds forecast. I'm not expecting it to fall down - it's survived worse, such as 1987. When I had my roof retiled[1], the roofers said it looked in good condition apart from some bricks have spalled a bit. But how much margin does a 12ft high stack have against exceptional winds? I am merely wondering if some time down the line it might be worth taking it down, either to just above the tiles or even below the tiles and add the missing tiles back. I have to admit though, as I sleep right under it, the high winds whistling around it do make me nervous as such winds almost always come in the wee hours around here. Doing some research it seems chimneys falling over is rare, and there are some ancient houses in our village with really tall and weedly thin stacks which haven't fallen over although several do have iron bar ties to the ridge (whereas mine is tall but stout) [1] A forward thinking person might have elected to shorten the stack then, but I was really tight on funds so extra jobs weren't really an option.