This is a task we had, most probably, to do already a year ago, together with roof replacement, but trust me, last year's summer was one of the hardest, as the new home owners we didn't have much clue how to handle all those many things, the house asked us.
So it took about a year before we actually decided to tear town that huge manfetel chimney. Well. I actually hired two workers to help me with it, meanwhile I was in the other part of loft painting and photographing the small room.
Chimney to be taken down
In past, most probably by time, when this house was built (1890) this chimney was not only just a chimney, but also a bread oven, kitchen and maybe even a bath. Nowadays its leaky, non functional, beneath it a ceilings are made with out any good reason. It asks to be removed, to free up space. A year ago we lost a top of this chimney while doing roof replacement works, see: Replacing Roof - Part 3: Removing the old roofing (Losing Chimney)
For making above and most of the rest pictures bellow I had to use light painting technique while shooting from a tripod (about 10 sec exposure)
Workers a top on the chimney
When dealing with such massive and unstable construction it's important to remove it brick by brick.
Bricks are stored in a stack near house
Clay bricks
When a top of the chimney was removed until this part, workers told me that just top bricks are real bricks, the bricks beneath are made from clay and they are not fired bricks. When removing them they are like a powder.It was a shame thing, as I planed to re use all bricks in further home construction works, a garden pizza oven is just one of the planned places to use bricks. Anyway I ordered to continue safely to remove bricks by brick.
Unfortunately, I was not heard good enough, and workers decided to tear down one of the chimney walls, unfortunately the floor beneath it cracked and in result we got a lot of mess.
Broken ceiling and chimney
As it might seem as a fast option to take chimney down, trust me its not, the work stopped for next few hours, as in result I had to abandon my works and go help out guys with this. By writing these lines we still haven't cleaned the room where chimney broke in.
Chimney demolishing brigade
From left: Aivars, Edgars and author of this blog.
Few hours later
Still a lot to remove
Broken chimney
...and very spacious room