I do appreciate good stonework.

I wish I could lay stone this well.

I know what makes good stonework… lay them flat… stagger the joints so they don’t align with the course below. Maintain a horizontal pattern. Rectangles are best, but an occasional oddity (run horizontally and not front and center) adds interest.

But, my attempts at laying rock has never turned out this well. I guess wood is my calling.

Originally posted 2015-06-13 14:48:29.

Here’s a photo of the re-built chimney.

i was tickled with the result.

I think it was a good call to take that leaning chimney down and build her back once again, better than before.

We did our best to rebuild her visually to look the same as she had been and to ensure that she matched the chimney at the other end of the house. And while in the process of doing that, we made upgrades to this chimney which should allow her to stand proud for a very long time… perhaps, forever.

Originally posted 2015-06-09 13:37:08.

Here you can see the chimney rising again, this time sitting on a much better footer. We also added in flue tiles and a damper to comply with building codes and make the chimney much safer to operate.

The old chimney came down very easily. In less than a day, one man rode her down with a digging bar prying the loose rocks free, one at a time, until he reached the ground.

The rocks were then cleaned and reused for the construction of the new chimney. We laid them in the same way, laid flat one upon another in horizontal layers.

Originally posted 2015-06-09 13:23:55.

The lean on this chimney was even more pronounced after we removed the siding from the house and exposed the logs long hidden beneath.

I told the owner of the home that one day that chimney was going to fall, that I didn’t know when, but when it happened it would be quick and I hoped that no one was killed when it happened. He had a real tough time making the decision for us to take this chimney down and rebuild it… after all, he had seen it standing there on the side of this home all his life. But now he was going to live here in this home, and, raise his children here, the chimney had to come down… on our terms.

Originally posted 2015-06-09 13:03:29.

The other chimney though had a distinct lean to it, likely caused by years or poor drainage on this side of the house.

I’ve heard it said before that one should always consider soil as a liquid, a very slow moving liquid.

Originally posted 2015-06-09 12:49:52.

Originally posted 2015-06-09 12:43:29.

The head mason always builds the corners, those under him fill in between, and the newbies… well, they keep mixing mortar and now work on completing the backside of the stonework.

Of course the newbies, those who this is there first experience laying stone, will get to lay a couple front and center stones (the head mason will trim them up a bit when the newbie is not around).

I always enjoy watching those newbies in the years to come go back to those stones and point out which ones they laid.

Originally posted 2015-06-05 13:48:12.

Here’s a great photo if you want to see the process of building a solid stone foundation that will pass today’s building code.

The least inexpensive person on the crew, aka… “newbie”, is in charge of mixing mortar and delivering it to the masons, and, digging the stone out of the pile so that it is easily found by the masons, and, laying the first course of stone (as seen in this photo). That first course will be buried with back-fill once finish grading has been done, so it’s a great way to learn the skill.

Notice that I have poured the footers nearly to the top of the excavated trenches making it over a foot thick rather than the standard four inches. Concrete is expensive, but it’s cheaper than stone and the labor needed to lay it.

Originally posted 2015-06-04 21:56:48.

Masons never put out the effort to make the backsides of their chimney’s attractive. lol I have never seen the hidden side of a chimney to be as nice as the front. One day I’m going to be surprised… maybe.

Originally posted 2015-05-22 15:27:18.

Originally posted 2015-05-11 14:14:25.