Day 13

The framers completed installation of a substantial portion of the floor joists today. Number 2 son thought it best to enjoy a stiff juice pack before touring the new look.

Framing stopped short of the chimney as the masons had just started work on chimney modifications, and needed room for their scaffolding.

It just dawned on me that the chimney modifications may not be readily apparent in the blueprints. Our house has two corner fireplaces – One in the den, and one in what was the master bedroom. The two fireplaces, although they each have separate flues, share a common chimney structure. The fireplace in the master bedroom is going away to make way for the hallway to the new master suite. The builder’s bid for the work included cutting the chimney in half & leaving the den flue alone. The resultant open face would be bricked with new brick.

Unfortunately, after getting started, the masons found a substantial lack of mortar holding anything together inside the chimney – Brick & block had just been stacked, and was being held together by the exterior brick (kind of like Pringles in a can). While not the best way to construct a chimney, it worked as both fireplaces drafted well, and broken brick/mortar lines were never observed either inside or out. But it made the original fireplace-ectomy plan all but impossible to safely accomplish. The builder was forced to issue a change order for more labor dollars to effectively bring the entire chimney to the ground, and re-brick a single flue version in its place. Fortunately, the remaining fireplace itself did not have to be rebuilt – only its chimney.

While not real thrilled about the additional cost, I was actually happy to have the chimney re-bricked as the original had not been aging well above the roof line. For whatever reason, the brick faces were popping off, and had been doing so for many years. Some of the brick had popped their way down to 2/3 of their original size. If you look closely at the picture below, lighter-colored areas of popped faces can be seen in what is left of the chimney above the roof line.

No construction picture is complete unless it includes a Porta-Potti…

Ever seen the inside of a chimney?