Is it Broken?
| Anybody out there like the Anne of Green Gables book? This is the house. |
Mike Rees, AKA The Chimney Guy, was opening another piece of fan mail, minding his own business. He read:
“Dear Chimney Guy, I’m a real estate agent and I am selling a house and the chimney inspector says the chimney is broken and needs to be torn down and rebuilt. That’s expensive. It looks
OK to me. Can you guys check it out?”
The Chimney Guy passed the information on to his manager, Sandy, and then got to thinking that this would be a good topic for the Newsletter.
Hence what follows:
It’s an important question to settle, Is the chimney broken or not?
Sometimes it’s very simple
Some inspector pushes on the chimney above the roof and it moves very easily. It moves a lot. He or she can look down at the roofline and see the chimney lift up and settle back down on the remaining brickwork with a thump. No doubt or question about it. It’s broken.
Other times it’s not nearly so obvious or easy.
The inspector pushes on the chimney and feels it move back and forth a little. He doesn’t see any horizontal crack on the inside or the outside, but there is some wood structure that hides part of the exterior of the chimney.
Sometimes a chimney will move slightly because it is only “flexing” or “bending” slightly, but it isn’t broken.
Sometimes a chimney will move slightly because it IS broken and is being partially held in place by the house structure somehow and is only allowed to move a small amount.
Sometimes an external horizontal crack is present, but it is so thin it is hard to see, and if one does see it, it may not be clear if the crack goes all the way through the chimney or is only a surface crack.
In my opinion a single inspector can sometimes have a difficult time getting enough data to decide whether or not it’s broken.
That’s why we often send two inspectors.
One person pushes on the chimney while the other one looks all up and down the visible parts of the chimney, even in the attic, looking for a thin crack which opens and closes slightly during the pushing.
If that is found, the only way it can happen is if the crack goes all the way through.
Broken chimney.
Sometimes the inspectors can’t see the whole exterior of the chimney to check for a crack which opens and closes, and they will put a camera inside the flue and look at the horizontal mortar joints or any cracks which are visible. So, if the guy watching the video sees something open up and close during the pushing, that is also indicating a fracture line running through the chimney at that point.
Broken chimney.
On the other hand, if our two- man inspection team can’t find conclusive evidence the chimney is broken, then we don’t say it’s broken, and we don’t recommend rebuilding it.
So, if you get a chimney inspection report and it says something like: “The chimney moved very easily when pushed and I could see a crack open up at the roofline and hear the top part thump when it settled back down on the lower part. It’s broken and should be rebuilt according to the city of LA standard plans on how to do a chimney rebuild. In this case that means demoing it down to the roofline and building it back up from there with metal flue pipes, etc.,” then I don’t feel you need to hire us to send two people there to inspect it.
It is most likely truly broken and should be treated as such.
BUT, if the report doesn’t speak as definitely as this recent example, please send us a copy of the report and we will tell you if it is worth having us do a two-man inspection. It’s not free.
We will do our best inspection and give you all the data we can get about the chimney.
It might be broken. It might not be. We are impartial.
May all your dreams be lofty.
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The Chimney Guy, Inc.
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