Chimney Blockage update

I measured the depth to the 90 at the bottom and went over to my material yard and grabbed one of the longer lengths of 1" galvanized pipe from a well pump change out job I did years back, it came in real handy, a little heavy to balance while standing on top of a chimney with the wind a blowin, fortunately I have 3 sections of scaffold up to work from as well as the extension ladder, chimney is about 19'-0" from grade.

Eventually after some impact from the using the pipe, I felt that ever so anticipated collapse ! It appears that after taking a closer look at the top flue tile, it's spalled quite a bit off the surface from the freeze thaw cycle most likely, and in conjunction with the old layer of creosote and or soot from whomever used it last, 25 years ago (I was not here for many years back then) it just compacted itself where the stove pipe 90 degree turn meets the vertical flue tile going up.

Flakes of flue tile and creosote grinds, just packed like soil in there, sealed right up and with the various sizes of those flakes it wedged itself in there but good. I broke through it, and slowly removed a 5 gallon pail full of flakes, creosote grinds, repeated the process a few times, and will rattle the chain one more time to make sure, don't want any surprises while it's in use ! Will have to add a chimeny brush to the collection, clean 'er out in the off season.

Placed a work light in the bottom and can see the light no problem now, and most of the flue, 'cept the top one is in good shape, and with some dried up grass bunched up for a smoke test, there is a good draft, pulled that smoke right out, should be good to go with some of the abundant seasoned wood from blow downs and the dried up barkless standing dead elms around.

Glad you got it. How long was that piece of 1" pipe? Unless I'm picturing it wrong, you had to stand on top of the chimney (in the wind) and work the pipe through your hands until you were holding it near one end to be able to get it upright enough to slip it into the flue. That about right? It sounds risky. You need to ease back on the risky stuff---the world's better with you in it than not, and I doubt that there's much you still have to prove.

All the best, Stan

While I was doing this, had this on my mind after reading the story about it:

Last week, on Trumps new 246 Spring Street building, in Manhattan, $450 million job, there was a collapse, and sounded like signals to the crane got fouled up to me, blind picks from signals are common on these jobs, appears they lost a bucket full of concrete, and or form materials into the area where they were pouring, with a man there, who went down and the mess landed on top of him. The story describes what fell as scaffolding, was formwork, and fresh concrete, the crane would not touch any forms on a pour day, kind of confusing the way it was decribed, See the link below

After dealing with jobs like these for many years, sometimes you get a little over confident, hence me standing on top of the chimney !

They pour a floor every 3 days, rush rush rush, probably over 100 guys on the deck, owner I worked for did one on 42nd st., over 40 stories, they really push the envelope on these jobs, Trump is no different, well now the job is jinxed and the city of new york dept of buildings will be all over his company. Never worth taking chances.

• Collapse

Always a tight schedule, they just keep compressing work activity durations, recalculating work schedules, (Primavera software like P3, P5 is great stuff for them) increasing production, and us PM's ( I was a PM in the industry too) have to make it happen, then of course they double your work load 1/2 way into the job beacuse they don't want to pay for another super, or assistant or whatever you need on the team to cover an area of the job.

Jobs were so much nicer when you have rational minded, personable, technically smart, field saavy people on an adequately staffed project management team, it's when you get the arrogant, know everything, have to prove themselves, chip on the shoulder types and or understaffed, the jobs become disasters. Heck they're all disasters now anyway the way I see it. Safety is the number one priority, they are lucky the one fatalty was contained to their own forces and not a pedestrian or passer by, that is a real busy street. Putting any building up in that city is a real difficult task, D.O.B., Cranes and Derricks, D.O.T., B.E.S.T. squad, E.C.B. Community Board etc. will be all over this job like flies on sh$t until it's done, they were close to topping out I think.

I'm going to rattle that chain with the big tow hook where the plug in the chimney was, still got a few old creosote flakes coming down, don't want no susprises later, have to respect the rules when burning wood, no doubt !

Good Luck