If you have booked a chimney take-down in Attleborough and want to know exactly what the job involves from start to finish, this page explains every stage of the work.
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A chimney take-down is not a complicated job, but it is a job with several distinct stages that need to happen in the right order. Understanding what each stage involves helps you judge whether the work is being done properly, ask the right questions beforehand, and know what to expect during and after the visit.
Diss Roofers carries out chimney take-downs in Attleborough and across the surrounding area, making the roof watertight in the same visit. Here is exactly how that works in practice.
Before any work starts, the stack needs to be assessed properly from close up, not just from the ground. What looks like a straightforward take-down from the garden can reveal complications once a roofer is up on the scaffold - particularly the condition of the surrounding roof covering, the state of the flashings, and whether there is any damage to rafters or battens where the stack meets the roof slope.
The assessment also confirms the tile or slate type so that matching material can be sourced before the day of the job. Turning up without matching tiles wastes time and can mean the roof is left temporarily covered rather than properly finished.
If the property has more than one stack, each one is assessed individually. They can be in very different conditions even on the same roof.
Scaffold or a suitable access platform goes up before any masonry is touched. Working from a ladder alone is not adequate for a chimney take-down - there is too much weight being moved and the risk of material falling is too high. Proper scaffold gives a stable working platform and, equally importantly, gives somewhere safe to lower or deposit debris rather than dropping it down the roof slope.
Once the platform is in place, the surrounding roof tiles or slates are protected. Any tiles that need to be lifted to access the base of the stack are carefully removed and stacked rather than slid aside or walked on. Roof coverings are expensive to replace and unnecessary breakages are avoidable with care.
Gutters and any conservatory or extension roof below the working area are protected with boards or sheeting to catch dust and small debris.
The stack is dismantled from the top down, one course of bricks at a time. Each brick is loosened with a bolster and club hammer and removed carefully rather than knocked inward or outward. Knocking bricks off a stack is faster but it sends unpredictable weight onto the roof covering and the scaffold below, and it risks cracking tiles, damaging gutters, or striking someone below.
Bricks are lowered by hand or in a hod, or chuted into a bag or skip below. Debris is cleared from the scaffold deck regularly so the working platform stays safe. The number of courses to be removed depends on where the stack sits relative to the ridge - ideally the remaining masonry should come to at least one course below the tile level so the reinstatement timbers and tiles sit cleanly over it without having to work around protruding brick.
The pots and flaunching come off first. Old flaunching is often crumbly and comes away relatively easily. Pots can be very heavy and need two people or a rope to lower safely.
Once the stack is down to the right level, the old lead flashing is stripped out. The step flashing is tucked into the mortar joints of the stack brickwork - once the stack is gone, this lead comes away with it. The soakers underneath, which tuck under each individual slate or tile and lap over the one below, are removed tile by tile.
Old lead is worth keeping if it is in reasonable condition - it can be melted down and is a commodity material. It is not waste.
With the stack and flashings removed, there is now a gap in the roof where the chimney passed through. The size of this opening and its exact position on the roof slope determine what timber work is needed. In most cases, new trimming timbers are fixed between the existing rafters to give the replacement tiles a proper structure to be nailed to.
Where old felt or underlay has been cut or disturbed around the stack, it is replaced at this stage rather than patched. Patching old bitumen felt is a short-term fix - if the felt is being disturbed anyway it should be replaced in the affected area with a modern breathable membrane.
The top of the remaining chimney breast masonry, if any is left inside the roof void, is checked for stability and any loose material is cleaned back to a solid line.
If the chimney breast remains below roof level inside the house, the old flue needs ventilation. A sealed-off flue with no airflow develops condensation inside the breast, which causes damp patches on internal walls over time - a problem that looks like a roof leak but is actually a flue problem.
A proprietary vent tile is fitted into the reinstatement area to provide a small amount of airflow into the old flue without creating a water entry point. This is a straightforward fitting but it is important and should not be skipped.
Replacement tiles or slates are cut and fitted to fill the opening. Tiles are fixed to the new battens and, where needed, individually clipped or nailed to comply with the fixing pattern used on the rest of the roof. The courses are checked to align with the existing tile laps on both sides so the join is not visually obvious.
Where the original tile cannot be matched exactly, reclaimed tiles are usually the best option for period properties. For a very close visual match on a natural slate roof, tile shuffling - moving original slates from a rear slope to the visible patch and filling the rear with new - is a technique worth discussing.
All broken brick, old mortar, lead offcuts, and packaging are cleared from the scaffold and from the roof surface before the platform comes down. Gutters are checked for debris and cleared if needed. A final visual check of the reinstatement is done from the scaffold before it is struck.
Once the scaffold is down, the roof should look as though the stack was never there, and there should be no loose material left on site.
Ask your roofer whether the price includes all of the above stages or whether there are extras for things like timber, vent tiles or waste removal. Ask what will happen if the rafters are found to be damaged once the stack is opened up - is there an agreed day rate for additional structural work, or is that a separate job? Knowing the answers before the scaffold goes up avoids surprises on the invoice.
If you have a redundant chimney in Attleborough, call us for a survey and we will walk you through exactly what the job involves on your particular roof.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
