A closer look at the chimney revealed it was not in the best condition. From down below, grouting appeared to be partially gone but from above, it was clear you could inspect the inside of the chimney from the outside…
So, time to get up there with the chisel small demolition hamer. We don’t have ladders that long, so we had to go through the roof.
Sitting on the rooftop like riding a horse turned out to be an unpleasant experience. Having to exert force at 7 meter high with a 300kg pile of brick next to you that must come down and accepted that fate all too eager did not feel good.
I started with a hammer and big chisel. Surprisingly, the top of the chimney was as if it was built yesterday. After one hour chiseling away, I decided to go for the power tools and three more hours later, the top 2 to 3 layers of brick were gone.
When that was done, cracks started to appear ‘everywhere’. Things were getting a bit unstable and I did not want a bunch of bricks tumbling down past about 20 rows of roof tiles (by that time I had already shattered three roof tiles by throwing down a single brick and the remaining ones were gently passed through the hole in the roof).
I ‘wrapped’ the rest of the chimney in a rope to keep it together while breaking the last fairly connected bricks. The bottom about 3 layers were that bad that I could just pick off the individual bricks without any tools.
In the picture below with the glove you can see the final section that had any significant coherence come loose as one piece. Also does it show the sand like structure of the cement.
The reconstruction of the roof was done by creators. Our task was done…
Oh yeah, and my brick throwing capabilities? I can hit roof tiles with ‘m…
