Missing bricks, heavy spalling, chimney about to collapse.?!

[Intelvision]

Hi there, I purchased a victorian terraced house about a year ago and encountered this when I went into the roofspace. As you can see from the attached photos the chimney is in a shocking state, the lime? mortar on all the bricks is literally like dust as is the front face of a number of the bricks, and some are missing entirely. And theres the large space created at some point supported with (now corroding) bands of iron( see arrow ). Ive showed this to a builder who seemed to think it wasnt a cause for concern, I however am not so bloody sure, the damage has been no doubt at least partly been caused by water ingress due to defective flashing round the chimney, which has now been repaired. Im not very happy about the situation and would appreciate any advice, im looking to sell the house soon, I cant imagine a prospective buyer is going to be too chuffed when he/she sees that lot, and even if they didnt look in the loft I dont want to stitch them up. Any advice/solutions/likely costs would be appreciated .

//www.diynot.com/network/Intelvision/albums/2201/8407 is the picture link.

Thanks in advance.[/img]

 

[big-all]

heeelllooo intelvision and welcome

i am only a humble carpenter

look fine to me when was the re-pointing done!!!!

the bricks above the band arnt doing anything as the chimny on the lhs is corbled onto the rhs stack in other words the bricks are like upside down steps and self suporting

 

[Intelvision]

Thx for the quick reply, ive posted a couple more pics in my album and did I mention that the chimney is also bowing out about 1/2 an inch in the middle too..? At least I dont need the buckets anymore to catch the raindrops tho

 

[Intelvision]

Bumping thread, any other advice anyone ..?

 

[big-all]

Bumping thread, any other advice anyone ..?

whilst your waiting for reasurance heres an article about corbelling
http://www.gobrick.com/pdfs/Supporting Brick Masonry.pdf?CFID=6104993&CFTOKEN=57186940

 

[^woody^]

TBH, there is nothing actually wrong with it.

Admittedly its a bit unusual for bricks to weather when not actual exposed to the weather, but if the leak has been sorted, then that's it - no problem