From a thread by John Burdis on the forum.
This is the story of Bek's stove installation.
When I surveyed the 'job' I looked at the set up of the existing chimney, room size, stack height, etc.
This is what I saw…
I try to imagine how it'll be best to close off the chimney space at the bottom. In this case its been shut up with some concrete which I'll have to remove to get the flue pipe through. It also made me wonder WHY it had been done like that….maybe to hide a mess!!!???
I also looked into the soot door at the top right of the picture to work out which way the chimney runs. Unfortunately I couldn't tell anything without starting the job / making a mess so I just took a gamble on knowing how it would turn out. The 'customer' had nothing to lose by my gamble since I'd just give a complete refund if it didn't work out.
No…I didn't mention it to Bek or Chris. Part of what they pay me for is to do the worrying for them. They simply didn't need to concern themselves with 'will it or won't it'.
When trying to gauge the height above the ridge of the stack, the trick is to count bricks. In this area (bricks vary with regions) there are about 13 brick courses (layers) per metre so when I look at the stack I count the bricks to see how tall it is to work out if I need scaffold or if I can work off a ladder.
Turning up first thing in the morning and getting the ladders up is my favourite bit. I get to stand where few others have stood, where few others will and see what few others see.
This is what I saw….
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Next job is to make sure the chimney is clean before the liner goes down. I sweep from the bottom and the top too so any soot lying on the bottom of the dogleg bends get swept out too.
This is where the job got stuck….. The rods just wouldn't go through the chimney. I was sweating a bit here!!! I've met chimneys before in this area where the builder's made the chimney twist in all sorts of ways and getting a flue down is just impossible.
As it turns out it was just a couple of years worth of birds nests!!!
Once they were out i could put my light in the soot door and see it from the top, which is what I'd imagined would be the case. Gamble paid off, clients not even aware of the concern!!!
Next…..Down goes the liner. A very neat disappearing trick.
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Connect up at the bottom and we're nearly there.
Closure board going in place….
If you don't have 3 hands….just turn upside down and use your feet!
Stove in place…get it fixed in with rivets.
Spray it all up to look nice…
And off we go
3 Happy customers
A few hiccups along the way but all's well that ends well.
