Chimney Rebuild Pt. II

The structural part of the chimney rebuild, for all intents and purposes, is complete. 

Last time I wrote something here, I left off at about this point:

Seems like forever ago that I was at this point. I'm glad I covered up the flu going down to the basement; this allowed me to add some stoutness to the structure and make it a little more solid, hopefully, than what had been entirely single wythe walls.

From there, up she went:

Doing this work is a lot like tile work in that no matter how dead on I get things, I kinda hate all of it until it's done. These bricks are slightly different sizes and there ain't a straight edge or square face on many of them, which makes level and plumb tough marks to uniformly hit. But, once it's all pointed and cleaned up, the mortar does a good job of softening all the brick edges that don't quite line up with each other.

I kinda liked the style of damper the chimney had, but they require a clay liner to sit on. Luckily, there's a place a couple miles down Gravois that sells that sort of stuff (I get all my brick mortar, type o, which the big box stores don't carry, there too) so I was able to pickup a 2' section pretty easily. I cut it in half and mortared it into the top two courses.

The chimney needed a cap and concrete is typically the material of choice. I could have formed and poured it in place but I didn't like that option -- I didn't think I'd be able to form it real well given the imperfections in the brick. Instead, I took some measurements, built a form in the shop, and poured the cap there. 

The cap is 2" thick at the outside edges, 2.25" thick around the hole for the clay liner, and wound up being heavy enough to be a super challenging thing to get up to the roof. But, I think the whole thing turned out pretty well, especially compared to what had been there previously (identical to the chimney towards the front of the house).

I still need to run a stainless steel liner down the flue and get the damper and damper cap installed, but that shouldn't be too painful. And, it can wait; completing the masonry portion of the job called for a celebratory hike and swim. 

With any luck I'll get the chimney buttoned up, inside and out, before it gets too cold to work outside. Got a basement window in about the same predicament, and a whole other exterior project I want to tackle before winter sets in, so we'll see...