It was rainy misty today so I was indoors.
R is waiting for me to finish scraping paint before he cleans the cold air return. When we removed the duct we were surprised at all the broken plaster that was laying in the cold air return. Well, maybe we weren't surprised. This is why we do as much work as we can because then you have control over things such as debris left in the cold air return.
I think I have one more day of scraping and then R can clean out the cold air return and fix the wood floor. I checked the wood floor scrap pile and we have enough long pieces to fix the floor without buying any more flooring.
We will resume shed work as soon as the weather clears up and we can work outside again. That is priority #1 on the outside work list. Priority #2 is removing the chimney that went to the boiler in the basement. It is no longer in use and in it's current state it poses several problems. The first being that any chimney will eventually leak and will require constant monitoring. We do not wish to monitor anything on the roof if we do not have to. The second is that cold air sinks so having a chimney in the middle of the house means that in the winter you have a column of frigid air in the middle of your house. Third is that you can have critters, like raccoon, squirrel, and bat, crawl down your chimney. I do not have a problem with any of these animals but I do not want them in my chimney. Raccoons are pesky little critters that have ripped off the screen on the chimney cap several times already. Fourth is that the chimney takes up valuable floor space in what will be my laundry room and a laundry room can never be large enough. I bet you have never heard anyone say "My laundry room is huge. I really wish it was smaller." Fifth is we currently have 3 chimneys and I would love to reduce that down to 2 to reduce the amount of $$$$ it will cost to repoint the bricks.
We figure that if we remove the visible part of the chimney now while the weather is OK. You know..... not too hot and not too cold. Then during the winter we can work on the removal of the remaining bricks in the interior.
This is another project where we already have the materials to complete the job. We have one and a half bundles of shingles in the barn, plus a roll of roofing felt (tar paper), and several boxes of roofing nails. I love projects that do not require the debit card to come out of my wallet.
Great idea removing the chimney as long as it doesn't support any floors. It will give you a ton of new space.
ReplyDeleteWe were planning on doing the same thing until we threw in the towel and just took the whole house down. I don't think you'll need to do that.
We removed our chimney, fireplace and hearth, almost all in one day! Our home is a basalite /cinderblock home, so the fireplace was not structural at all, just popped through the roof. We started at the top and disassembled going down. My husband had the roof patched and shingled before dark, and the interior finish work took only a few more days. Any bricks that were salvageable are now in my back patio. It was ugly, didn't draw, and used up 15 square feet in our tiny living room. We've been talking about getting a wood burning stove to replace it one day.
ReplyDeleteI'm really looking forward to the added space. I know we have 3700 sq ft already but the chimney just sticks out on both floors.
ReplyDeleteAnnette....I'm hoping we can get the roof repaired in one day but I think it will take at least a day to cut through the plaster (wire mesh). I also don't look forward to that mess. The chimney is already exposed on the first floor. I have some ideas for the bricks and we were able to pick up a few pallets to stack the bricks on.