June 2020: I lost 35 tons in 2 weeks -- learn about my weight loss program!
We have had chronic roof leaks around our chimney since we bought the
house. The first summer we owned the house we replaced the shingled
roof with metal, which corrected a number of roof related issues, but
never quite fixed the leaks near the chimney, which continued to become
more severe over time. Roofers who we had look at the situation said
that the roof was done exactly like they would do it, but that the roof
line was such a bad design it was not really permanently fixable.
The challenges:
The house as originally built was an A-frame, with the chimney on
one side of the house.
The chimney has 2 flues -- one for the main floor fireplace and
another for what must have been a stove in the basement (now
nonexistent)
The chimney is massive in size!! It is 7 feet wide outside the
house, and is tapered so it flares to 10 feet wide inside the house
In the 90s an addition to the house (kitchen and upstairs bedroom
pushed out) changed the roofline so snow and ice backs up behind the
chimney
The rock on the chimney is porous. Maybe if the chimney was sealed
every year water would not have seeped behind the rock, but this was
not the case.
While aesthetically the chimney looked pretty, after many years we
decided you cannot put band aids on a bad design, and that the correct
way to fix the problems was to correct the design. Plus we did not need
the chimney, as we had a propane insert inside the fireplace.
*THE CHIMNEY MUST GO!
*The project needed to be scheduled to begin in spring/early summer, as
we did not know what additional problems and issues we might uncover.
We needed a few months safety margin. It does typically snow here in
October, so it really needed to completed in advance of that. Last
summer was spent trying to arrange the necessary contractors and
schedule them in -- because of the short summer season they need to be
booked far, far in advance.
And who the heck do you get to demolish a chimney anyway? It is
definitely an out of the ordinary project. We finally ended up
contacting masons, since these are people who know how to put chimneys
up, and had an extremely pleasant experience with the mason who removed
the chimney. Starting on June 8, /he and jack hammer single handedly
removed 35 tons of rock, cinder block and debris over a two week
period!!!!/ This was followed by a carpenter who was able to come in
immediately (June 22-26) after demolition and re-framed the roof. In
an incredible "just in the nick of time" job, the roofer came out on
Friday, June 26 in the afternoon to apply the waterproofing tar paper to
provide the initial seal to protect the new roof.
While extremely nervous about having all the pieces fall into place, we
having nothing but praise for the contractors and our experience with
them. We remain a ways from completion of this entire remodel, but the
chimney removal and roof in place provides us a timeframe that is
unaffected by weather. This is an extremely big milestone to have
completed!!
**
The original chimney. Massive!! Note the roof valley that ends
directly behind the 10 foot chimney. We average 200 inches of snow a
winter, which sat all winter behind the chimney melting and
re-freezing. This is not a a stupid design; this is really, really
stupid design!
The new clean roof line. The carpenter makes it look so easy! And
photo with tar paper in place.
Tar paper was complete at approximately 7pm on June 26, just in time for
some serious wet weather testing. Throughout the storms which at times
produced extremely heavy monsoon rains, we remained dry inside the
house. Finally, finally, finally no leaks!!
More photos to follow of the actual demolition.
