Chimney job.

[Pamphonica]

Well done Colin. I just stand in awe. There is nothing you will not only turn your hand to, but fully learn the job and produce a really professional finish. Lovely job and interesting to see how it was done!
I am not bad on basic DIY but for some reason don't like things involving mortar or plaster! I do get brownie points for keeping everything running in the house. I try to cure drips, fuses etc as soon as they occur rather than let them mount up. And small (re-) wiring, plumbing and making good jobs are appreciated by SWMBO (who actually has the patience of a saint).
But now the weather is so nice the garden is calling as well (we decided not to have a gardener) and that means very little time for old electronics.
But I do sneak off from time to time to my workshop...
all the best
Jeremy

[Yorkie]

You've done a wonderful job there Colin - I couldn't believe how cheap the 'Bishop's hat' chimney pot was when I checked the website of the firm that you found - a real bargain, and the flaunching that you've done around the base of the pot looks really neat.

You're going to have to come to terms with the fact that your Ekco TV chassis is going to become a 'winter project' - May already! (I've fogotten which day Summer falls on in Huddersfield - has it already been and gone?!).

David.

[glowinganode]

Go Col, go.
Is there no stopping this man?
Rob.

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Alan; you are welcome any time and don't worry it's not a hard hat area. The health and safety lot in this country are now doing more harm than good and are just a joke. When Bron and I visited the chimney manufacturers we parked the car and notices informed us to book in at reception as we were no longer allowed to wander around without an escort; after booking in we were issued with high visibility jackets and had to accompany a staff member as we looked around. This to us is shutting industry down as we will now only visit such places when absolutely necessary. The local scrapyard where I obtained my 3 phase scrap transformer go even further; I've bought a high visibility coat and hard hat for when I visit the site which is no longer often as I can't be bothered with all the safety rules.

Thanks Jamie we don't have a local "Focus" and I'm not surprised they are winding down. The only growth industry around here are fast food outlets and erection of speed cameras.

Well done Jeremy; it's good to hear you are tackling an assortment of jobs around home and hopefully you will become familiar with mortar and plaster as the need arises. I do every repair around home with the exception of our rubbish central heating boiler. At three years old it sprang a leak in the middle of winter when it was freezing cold a couple of years ago. I replaced the pump costing £90 but then it started to pop other leaks and I couldn't keep up with it so after many hours called in British Gas and the engineer was with us three days on the trot trying to get on top of the many problems. This boiler is now the only thing we have insured other than the car; I hate plumbing jobs mid winter!! I too have plenty of work to do in the gardens and have felled a number of large trees over the years we have lived here; it upset me a couple of years ago as I had to ask a tree surgeon to remove the top 40' from one of our trees as the branches were too thin to bear my weight; the tree surgeon brought along his 40' long ladder. Normally I would have simply climbed the tree and done the job myself.

Thanks David; yes the chimney pot was dirt cheap and I took a lot of care to bed it neatly with concrete as it is such a focal point to our bungalow. I agree the TV chassis will have to wait until I can get around to spending time working on it. I can't believe the weather so far this year; we've suffered the worst winter ever recorded but over the last two weeks the weather has been beautiful; cold on a morning but lovely in the afternoons and what a contrast to last year when I must have been having my dinner when summer visited us because I totally missed it. I'm making the most of this gorgeous weather because once it starts to rain it doesn't know when to stop.

I do lots of big jobs around home and all the 34 years I've been married have done at least one big job per year planning the work beforehand. When I retired I decided to make access to our bungalow easier as we have a flight of steps up one side and the other side had nine steps with a sloping path. I decided to get rid of the nine steps; there were three by the garage; three at the end of the path then we would walk along a narrow path to the rear of the bungalow and drop down three steps.

The first year I dug out by hand to the rear of the bungalow creating a new patio area together with a new path; the following year I dug out by hand to the side of the bungalow installing a long ramp. Digging out was incredibly hard work and it was wet clay; the clay from the rear was spread around the gardens but the clay from the side of the bungalow required two large skips. I enquired about hiring the skips and at the time they were £117 each but I was informed I needed a permit from our local council to allow the skip to be placed at the roadside; the permit costing £6?

At the time we had a Nissan Micra and it took 72 trips to our local refuse site to dump the clay in the skip on site; I took six large bags up to the site each time and Bron went along each time for the ride. I protected the car with old rugs and the first trip with eight bags had us plane spotting and given the dire roads I was worried about damaging the car so dropped the load to six bags which the Micra handled better.

It gave us immense pleasure to see the council skip wagon bring the skip we had filled back into Huddersfield passing us in the opposite direction as we headed with another full load to the refuse site. I saved the £6 council fee and saved a great deal more by not hiring skips; it cost about £60 for petrol for the Micra. There is absolutely no incentive to better ourselves in the UK because if we try so many people have their hand in our pockets before we even start.Take this one job as an example; the council wanted £6 for doing absolutely nothing. The skip hire company lost hiring two skips which would have caused employment and the council had to pay to transport our clay from the refuse site to a tip. I'll not be beaten by such people.

At the rear of the bungalow the garden and path came to within 4" of the bungalow extension wall so now it is pushed back and the garden retained by a dry stone wall together with two new lots of steps into the garden. I designed everything on paper before starting the work. A new retaining wall in random stone was erected by me to support our neighbours garden and because of the ramp I had to make a bespoke fence; the fence looks excellent and is made of roofing battens to my design. I could go on forever about the jobs we have done but here are a few pictures. All the work has been done by me and Bron with no outside help whatsoever. It's amazing what can be done with hard work and lots of patience and a great deal of money can be saved. I like to encourage others to have a go by starting firstly with a small project.

Kind regards, Col.
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[Aerodyne]

Elegant, neat - an opf course a top-quality job, as we have all come to expect of you, Col.
-Tony

[AlanBeckett]

The bit he hasn't told you is that he lives on the side of a cliff. If you should visit ropes, crampons etc are the order of the day, and don't go if you suffer from vertigo or have a weak heart
Alan

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Tony; I enjoyed doing the job but am now pleased it is completed and hope I don't have to touch the chimney for many years to come. I've been foolish as I've had a clear out and tidy up under the bungalow; I pulled out lots of scrap metal that might come in handy some day and piled it up; I also disposed of my scaffolding which is no longer used; the scrap man picked it all up this afternoon so I've now got some space to clutter up once again; the picture shows some of the scrap but I've still retained plenty.

Nice one Alan and very near the truth as living here on the valley side is both good and bad; we have panoramic views across the valley and catch a lot of sun but the downside is that we also catch the full force of rain; wind; snow hail etc. last winter a JCB came along the street to dig us out of the snow and a number of neighbours complained that it left the street like a skating rink but we were no longer worried as we now fit Avon Ice Touring Tyres to our Toyota Aygo's front driving wheels and they make a tremendous difference. (£108 the pair delivered to our door direct from Germany and £20 for a pair of almost new steel wheels with a further £28 for snow chains just in case).

A weak heart would be no good living here either as cutting the grass in our back garden takes me 45 minutes using a petrol mower and gives me a fabulous workout. We love it here though and our bungalow is our dream home; it should be because we've just about rebuilt it over the last 24 years living here.

I bet I need some of the scrap tomorrow that I've disposed of today.

Kind regards, Col.

[attachment=1187]
Some of the scrap metal awaiting collection.

[Joe]

Less to weed!

[Retired]

Hi,

Thanks Jamie; your dad has got his priorities right. Our garage is beneath the bungalow and measures 22'x11'. Usually bungalows are quite small and aimed at the older buyers but ours is large with a 40' frontage and on a large plot.

My friend David (Yorkie) mentioned my tree felling exploits in post #6 so here are a few details. Last summer (?) I was trying to paint the exterior of the bungalow and the weather was dire as usual here on the valley side. It ranged from high winds to pouring rain so I was not at all amused; one day I had to knock off because the paint was being blown from the brush. In the mornings it was 6 degrees and I felt frozen and in the afternoon when the sun did come out it was 25 degrees burning the back of my neck and legs.
It was the time of the Icelandic volcano eruption and as I worked at the rear of the bungalow very fine powder was settling on the wet gloss really annoying me. Our neighbour Terry popped over and as we were talking he said "did you see that?" he was pointing towards the large Scots Pine to the side of the bungalow; as I watched the breeze was creating dense clouds of pollen from the tree and it was this settling on the paint.

I had previously removed the top 15' from the tree but now it was all out war. I put everything away and the next day climbed the tree taking along my log saw; of course it was absolutely pouring with rain making climbing the tree hazardous but I didn't care. I started at the top and roped each branch before cutting to control its fall and by the end of the day all the branches were removed leaving a "totem pole". I was soaked to the skin and my gloves were wringing wet so I was happy to call it a day.

The following day my friend Steve loaned me a powerful electric chainsaw; once again I climbed the tree taking with me the chainsaw; extension cable and rope. I tied the rope to the very top of the tree then came half way down as I was going to drop the trunk in two sections as I didn't want to add a new focal point in our neighbours bedroom. The day was sunny and warm and I was at peace with the world but it didn't last.

Our neighbours returned from holiday and clearly saw what I was doing. Their son decided to wash his car aided by his girlfriend on the drive below the tree and to make matters worse two of their friends turned up and started to wash their cars? It was becoming a street party; this was bad enough but just to pile another problem on the neighbour’s son who lives across the road was allowing his little daughter to run up and down the path screaming her head off below the tree.

I was working from a ladder trying to fell the top section but it was proving quite difficult; the chainsaw only had 2’ of cable fitted so this meant I was also trying to lift the extension cable reel; the angle of the ladder brought me too close to the trunk to safely operate the saw so another plan was needed but by now I was totally fed up with the street party and the little girl whizzing around ruining my concentration. All this was highly dangerous so I knocked off and went to sit at the back of our bungalow on the patio to calm down a bit.

Eventually all the car washing was done and our neighbours car was parked in their drive. I heard voices and it was Bron with our neighbour who had knocked on our front door and Bron had brought her through the bungalow to the patio where I was; asking if I was going to drop he trunk and would it be helpful if the car was removed from the drive? I explained just how dangerous the situation had become and how reckless it was of her son to allow a little girl to run around so near a tree that was being felled; I was very polite about this and thanked her for coming round. The car was moved onto the road and everyone departed. I then decided to try using my large step ladders placing these away from the trunk to allow me to use the chainsaw safely; I cut a wedge out from the section of the trunk in the direction of I was to drop it. I then cut partially through from the other side leaving enough material for support then put everything safely out of the way and went into the garden to give the rope a good tug; the trunk creaked but refused to drop so I repeated this a number of times cutting a bit deeper each time until I was rewarded with a solid thump as the top section of the trunk landed perfectly in the garden.

At last I could relax and took my time removing the bottom section of the trunk in pieces I could lift throwing each into the garden; once the trunk was completely down it was then an easy job to cut the top section into pieces. As it was mid summer the trunk was full of sap and each log was very heavy.

As I was tidying up the little girls father came across and thanked me for my concern regarding her safety saying he hadn’t realized just how dangerous it was; we get on well with our neighbours but many haven’t a clue about practical matters.

Steve arrived to collect his chainsaw and also to take the logs away which I had promised him leaving me with many trips to the local tip to dispose of the debris.

We liked this Scots pine and were very sorry to drop it but it did fill our gutters with cones and needles and it won’t mess my painting up ever again. I’ve felled a number of large trees in our back garden but still have a lot left including two Oaks and a very large blue spruce.

This is just one of the many jobs I do around home and by doing so we save a great deal of money; I hope I’m still climbing trees when I reach 100 years old. It took over six weeks to complete the painting job and the bungalow is finished in Bakelite brown and black.

Kind regards, Col.

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[Shaman]

What an interesting post, Col, regarding the tree felling and the associated dangers some do not simply see, and you were blaming the Icelandic Volcano, when it was pollen, leave the Paint brushes alone this year Col, as its off again spewing dust into the Atmosphere, i hope my wife can fly safely from Canada, in August as this also messes up plane travel, thanks again for a brilliant post ....kind regards....Alan.