The heat finally broke and returned to something more closely approaching normal. I think it was only 10 degrees over seasonal norms. Since it was still too hot to really do anything active in the interior we pulled the plug on our trip up to see friends in Kamloops. Good thing too since fires started pretty much everywhere and the air quality plummeted.
Instead of a weekend of friends and bike rides we had a staycation. Sarah gardened and i worked on the chimney.
First thing we had to sort out was the concrete hearth that was attached to the back of the chimney. I built a framework and screwed it into the joists to hold it up. If you recall, the slab hangs over gas and water pipes and it would suck to have the slab fall and take them out. I also had a big metal support post in the shed that my father had given us when we told him about the state of our addition. It is a telescoping poll with a peg through it to adjust the height then it has a screw mechanism for fine tuning.
Once i was confident that the hearth couldn’t collapse i set about to build a floor to cover the hole. This has two purposes. The first is to stop people from coming to great harm by falling into the remains of our chimney, and the second is to prevent the dust from the chimney destruction rising into the kitchen. This was a heck of a lot of work and took most of the day, mostly because of geometry and partially because i am not a great carpenter.
First i had to build the frame for the floor. No problem. “Measure twice and cut five times” is my motto and i banged something together pretty quickly using material i had laying around. (never throw out lumber!) The huge challenge was getting it into the hole. I tried from above but with bits of the wall overhanging the hole on both sides that was a non-starter. I tried from the bottom but the gas pipe actually stuck into the hole on one side. so it couldn’t slide straight up. I had to come at it from an angle. The problem with angles is that it makes my carefully planned piece actually a little too big. I’d draw you a picture but i am lousy at drawing so just cut yourself out a model with cardboard and give it a whirl. I’ll wait.
I ended up having to take down a few rows of bricks and mask up to take some asbestos tape off some duct work i had to get out of the way. Eventually i got the framing in place and got a piece of plywood on it. Also from the scrap pile. (see comment above re: throwing out lumber) The piece of plywood was actually a door to a closet from our first house that we used as a shelf for many years and lived a third life as a roof for my lumber crib beside the shed that we took down to give the masons room to work on the chimney top. Good plywood is useful. (and never throw out lumber!) It is now having it’s fourth life and saved me $50. I threw in a couple of screws and called it a day.
Saturday i finished the floor and taped down some vapour barrier to seal off the dust and we headed to the hills to visit Dave and Kelly who have a cabin at Hollyburn. Much cooler up the mountain and we had a nice walk and Sarah, Dave, and Kelly had a swim. I swim in Hawaii, Bali, and other places that don’t freeze my ass off. I am fussy that way. Call me a princess, i don’t care.
Sunday i had lined up Ric to come help. Ric is a student that lived with us and we have become his Canadian family. I had been chipping away at the chimney bit by bit since i supported the slab to try and prevent the back breaking sprint i did in the kitchen. A couple of times a day i would knock off a few rows and carry out a few buckets of bricks. The big challenge with the basement portion of the chimney is that it was full to at least 6 feet with rubble from the demolition upstairs. So it wasn’t just the bricks, it was everything we had chucked down. Rick came over about 2 pm and in a couple of hours we had it done. It wasn’t pretty and we have about four 5 gallon pails of ash and soot and mortar mix but it is done except for the tidying. That is a job for another day.
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