Chimney Redo

While we had a mason on site, we decided to have some preventative maintenance done on our chimney. As you can see below, it needed a little help. The key word here is "little": take a couple of layers off, redo them, re-stucco, and call it a day. Upon further investigation it was determined that we needed to redo the entire chimney because it was not built correctly, or to code.
Before:

 

Andrew (yellow shirt) joined the mason on roof to confirm the poor condition of our chimney.

Out with the old....

 

 

The old chimney came down in less a day. It was like an episode of Holmes on Homes.

   

 

 The footer for the new chimney is nearly twice the size of the old.

...and in with the new.

 

Apparently this is how real men mix cement. I gave it a try myself. Not so easy.

 

 Laying the first new block.

 

Rain? No problem.

 This is what our original chimney did not look like. It was never back-filled like this, so the flue pipes wobbled around and smoke leaked through the entire chimney.

 

 After:

 

The blue stone cap is in two pieces, but each half is so heavy that it took a pulley system and five guys to get them to the top of the chimney. This is the same crew that topped the trees to open our view, so I guess they remembered how dissapointed I was that I didn't get to see the tree climber in action. Apparently these guys also noticed that I like to document our projects, so they brought a camera to the job-site specifically to take pictures for me! How nice is that?!?! Here are a few pictures from their camera

 The climber is on his way down. Can you see him?

 Our custom made cap. It's hard to tell, but the blue stone is about 4" thick.

Apparently they told him to "swing". I think this is a pretty cool picture.

 

After Hurricane Irene

     We lost power in the middle of the hurricane, around 6:00am Sunday, so by the time the storm passed twelve hours later, we were anxious to get out of the house and find some coffee and entertainment. We found coffee, but just about every other business was closed for the hurricane, so we ended up in Warayas Park in Poughkeepsie. The river was still very high and had clearly spill out of her banks based on the debris all the way out in the parking lot.

   

 The wind was still blowing hard enough to take your breath away and make the water very choppy. We had making up stories about out all of the trinkets that washed ashore. 

 This bench was once bolted to the brick patio four feet in front of it.

 After a lovely evening watching the sun set over the Hudson River, we came home to this...

 Without a doubt, the retaining wall saved Andrew's work truck from any major damage. There were no broken windows or mirrors, just a couple of dents and scratches.

 

 

The result is more sun on my future garden and one less obstruction to the view.

 

Does anyone have a hickory nut recipe?

Retaining Wall:Completed

Retaining Wall Replacement: Part III

Afternoon of Day 2:

The corner was the last part of the wall to be built.

 

 It looked like we were going to have a half-load to a load leftover, but the corner used up quite a bit of this pile. We also placed some rock on the edge of the turnaround to prevent anyone from driving over the septic tank anymore as well to create a garden.

 

 

 After Day 3:

The third day was needed to finish the main retaining wall, build the secondary wall, and regrade the side lawn and back hill.

 

 There were several boulders left over, so we ended up with a second retaining wall which is helping level out our side yard.

 My future vegetable garden.

 

 The last part of the project is installing the catch basin, trenching a pipe from the downspout at the corner of the house to the basin, and then spreading gravel on the driveway and turnaround. 

 

Completion pictures to come later this week in Part IV. See you then!