Hi all
We are finding out that pointing the chimney is a bigger job than we first thought! We have repointed the main bulk of it now but we are now looking at the worst part of the chimney - the top 4 courses of bricks and parts of the flaunching. The two back corners of the chimney look bad and we have removed the corner on my side to relay today
The main cause of the problem with the chimney is this fern type plant that we found out today in bad areas has totally replaced the original motar and when you pull a brick out the roots that are left even have the brick name imprinted where the motar used to be - horrible stuff
Anyway ideally I would like to take the whole top four courses off and re-lay but I can also see theres a quite a bit of expense in doing this.
So just had a word with neighbour and hes not really up for doing the lot. He can see why Im thinking of doing it (or getting someone in) but hes just happy to repoint the remaining courses and then possibly get the worse parts of the flaunching off (which Ive practically done today) then score the remaining and place cement over the top of the existing flaunching
Hes also had brand new fire fitted so always a risk that something could fall and damage that
Although I would like to do it all properly I can see his point in that theres a lot of material on top and costs involved too - so I too am happy to do the bad parts only - it will last long enough to see my days out
Anyway - just looking for any tips really for doing this type of thing particularly the flaunching bit - should I add fibres to sand cement mix to prevent cracking?
I notice theres a gap between pots and existing flanching at the moment where the pots have expanded maybe - should I wrap pots to leave a 5mm gap bewteen new cement.... then fill with silicone afterwards?
- and any tips for killing that fern
Thanks for reading!
We are finding out that pointing the chimney is a bigger job than we first thought! We have repointed the main bulk of it now but we are now looking at the worst part of the chimney - the top 4 courses of bricks and parts of the flaunching. The two back corners of the chimney look bad and we have removed the corner on my side to relay today
The main cause of the problem with the chimney is this fern type plant that we found out today in bad areas has totally replaced the original motar and when you pull a brick out the roots that are left even have the brick name imprinted where the motar used to be - horrible stuff
Anyway ideally I would like to take the whole top four courses off and re-lay but I can also see theres a quite a bit of expense in doing this.
So just had a word with neighbour and hes not really up for doing the lot. He can see why Im thinking of doing it (or getting someone in) but hes just happy to repoint the remaining courses and then possibly get the worse parts of the flaunching off (which Ive practically done today) then score the remaining and place cement over the top of the existing flaunching
Hes also had brand new fire fitted so always a risk that something could fall and damage that
Although I would like to do it all properly I can see his point in that theres a lot of material on top and costs involved too - so I too am happy to do the bad parts only - it will last long enough to see my days out
Anyway - just looking for any tips really for doing this type of thing particularly the flaunching bit - should I add fibres to sand cement mix to prevent cracking?
I notice theres a gap between pots and existing flanching at the moment where the pots have expanded maybe - should I wrap pots to leave a 5mm gap bewteen new cement.... then fill with silicone afterwards?
- and any tips for killing that fern
Thanks for reading!
