Ottertail Country

Ottertail Country
Ottertail South

October 26, 2011

The Upper Chimney Caper

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Here we will show you how to take a chimney off your roof.  Well, assuming you have a fabricated steel chimney that is suspended from the top of an A-frame house....



                                   
I know, it looks innocent enough from here....



                                       
On an A-frame, all work is done from a ladder laying on the roof.  It's quite stable that way unless there is an entryway or something in line with what you're working on.


                                                 
                                                 
So you just loop a rope around something on the roof, tie it to the ladder top and tie the other end to the four wheeler.  That way you can slope the ladder way to the side without it slipping.....


                                                 
Looks like fun, hey???


                                       
Joe Chizek brought his rear-mount loader truck to the house.  We got it as close as we could to the chimney.


                                       
Looks like it's going to be close.  Not much boom left here.



                                     
Up I go to attach the chains to the loader bucket.



                                       
Getting the bucket tied to the chimney with as little slack in the chain as possible.



                                     
Starting to lift.......



                                      
When it released from the roof, it popped up like apiece of toast out of the toaster!



                                      
Clear of the roof.



                                      
Off to the west it goes.......



                                     
And down towards the truck.




                                     
We had inspectors on hand.  Dave and LaVonne happened to stop in just as the chimney was being lowered to the truck.



There it goes.





                                      
Here's the hole that was left, right up by the fan.




                                       
A couple of shots from the outside.....




                                     



                                     
Just after getting the plywood fit to cover the hole. 
I know, seems like I'm overdoing it with this post, but I'll tell you, it took alot longer to do it than to tell about it.  I began the project in the fore-noon, and climbed back down off the ladder for the last time at 7:30 in the evening, just as the drizzling rain was starting.  Seems like a long time ago now.....


That's all for now...

I gotta go, Carlo


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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks like the roof work was harder than the stack removal.
Good documentation though.
No news on the house sale front.
Boo

Anonymous said...

Hi, Bill here (Margo's husband). I am from Washburn, just up SATE HWY 13 from you.

I forgot to ask you one thing about your mason/brick chimney. You said it was going to have an open wood burning front.

I have 2 Irish friends in Bemidji that have made mason/brick and mason/stone chimneys which do all the efficient indoor cold air drawing and exchanging your design has.

Both of them incorporated an outside cold air intake for the burning area because if you draw indoor air, albeit warmer, as the air to fuel the fire you cause a negative indoor pressure of the house, which causes cold air to find its way from all nooks and crannies, and esp. when an exterior door or window opens.

In their words, the air is always cooling off because you are always drawing cold air in the house to replace the warm air lost to the open fireplace area, (esp. if you don't have a glass door on the area).

So these Bemidji units have a metal tube that is mouse proof which connects the outdoor air to the burning area to feed the fire fresh air from the outside, (like one of those high efficient natural gas furnaces that have intake and exit PVC sticking out the exterior wall.)

Well, that's my two bitz. Dr. Bill (Margo's husband)

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Anonymous said...

I'm envious of your skills for customizing your own house. Looks good. I liked your pictures of Grandpa's chimney stack. Thanks for sharing, and well done telling the story.
Paul Janda

Anonymous said...

Sure looks like you know what you are doing! You could go professional! While thumbing through the pictures I thought maybe you were going to replace the chimney with another skylight!
Kristi

Anonymous said...

Wow!! That would have been fun. :) Good work! Eager for the next batch of pictures :)
~Rosie