Chim-Chim-eny

Hey players.

So, a couple years back, when Kris and I were closing on our house, we paid to have a home inspection done.  The guy that our realty office hired for the job seemed like a nice enough guy, and when he went through the house he really only pointed out a couple different issues:  an outdoor outlet on the back patio had no juice, some of the drop ceiling tiles could be replaced for aesthetic purposes (whatever), and, lastly, there were some hairline cracks in a few of the bricks on our chimney.

Now, this last one was obviously the only real issue that he pointed out that Kris and I both felt was necessary to address, and when asked about it the inspector said that putting some 'sealant' on it would do the trick, nothing too serious.

Well I'm here to tell you folks, that that man was a complete f***ing idiot.

True, we put off sealing up the cracks for a couple years, but the problem was far more severe than a few cracks in a handful of outer bricks (which is what homeboy said the issue was.)  Nay, a couple months ago we started noticing that our chimney's bricks were starting to flake off.  Not in huge quantities or anything, but regularly enough that it was disconcerting.  Kris and I hired one of our handymen, and later the Chimney Doctor (Midland's local chimney expert) to come out and look at it, and both guys said the same thing:

Your chimney needs to be replaced.  It's more or less crumbling due to water seeping into the mortar.  Which the inspector would've seen for himself if he had gotten his old, decrepit ass onto a ladder and up to our roof to see the thing close-up.

Anyway.

We had a couple ways forward with this.

• Option 1:  tear down the entire chimney, all the way to the ground, and rebuild it.  
• Price Tag: about $6,000.  
• Option 2:  put up vinyl siding along the outside , thereby stopping moisture from seeping into the bricks and stopping future damage.  
• Price Tag:  about $600.

Not surprisingly, we went with Option 2.

John knows how to do this already, having done so to his own chimney (which is twice as big as ours), so he - along with my mom and brother, Jeff - spent a few mornings over the course of the last month or so encasing our chimney in vinyl siding.  I'm sooo glad we don't have to worry about this bullshit anymore - I hate owning a house sometimes.

Let me show you folks how this all went down. . .

May 18th

The first step in this process was to affix a series of boards to the outside of the chimney, first with masonry cement, then with a nail gun.   This was, by far, the slowest and most difficult part of the entire job.

Jeff operated the saw while I measured out boards and ran supplies up the ladder.

You had to frame each face of the chimney with these boards so that later on in the process we could nail on the various pieces of vinyl siding.  A definite pain in the ass.

A couple hours in, we realized the nail gun we were using - some random .22 caliber pipe thing that shot nails through the board and into the masonry with the sound of a gunshot - wasn't driving the nails in deep enough, so we had to send Jeff to Lowe's to pick up a crap-load of masonry screws and switch tactics.  This required drilling in screws with three different guns:  one drill gun for the board, one for the brick, and one for the screw.  Ridiculously time-consuming.

The impromptu construction site. . .

John ended up staying on top of the roof for the majority of this chimney job, with Jeff and I taking turns running stuff up the ladders.

(Mom ended up on the roof quite a bit as well.)

The framing complete, we called it a day.

May 26th

About a week later, we all reconvened on a Sunday morning to throw up the siding (which proved to be a FAR easier job than securing the framing to the brickwork.)

Jeff and I took turns cutting the vinyl according to John's specifications, and the only real pain in the ass with this stage of the job was cutting shorter panels for the sides of the chimney (as it naturally decreased in length the higher you went up the chimney, and you only had about a 1/4" margin of error.)

Working behind this bush that hugs the side of the chimney was definitely challenging. . .

Alas, we had to stop work for the day once we ran out of siding, which was fine since we couldn't really finish the chimney anyway seeing how we had to order a cap for it. . . and that had to be measured after the siding was up.

June 23rd

Nearly a month later (it took awhile for the cap - pictured here - to arrive), we once again met up on a Sunday morning to put up the last of the vinyl siding and affix the cap to the top of the chimney.  This time we were without Jeff, but that was okay seeing how the job itself was only a fraction of what the previous two days were.

Kris - all dolled up for Church - hands up a coffee to Mom on the roof.

While John finished the siding on top of the roof, I ran it up the rest of the chimney's sides.

Mom has a coffee break while John went out for last-minute supplies.

The cap in place, all siding complete.

Preparing to pack up, a couple hours later.  With everything in place, the last thing they did was hammer down that corner you see sticking up, there.  Again, a little more labor intensive than hiring someone else to do it, but waaaaay cheaper.   I f***ing hate being a home owner. . .

- Brian