Your thoughts please.

[ajstoneservices]

What would you do to make this safe. There is a lot of weight on that collar.

 

[Doggit]

Can you add pictures from further back so we can see the top and bottom of the stack as well.

How old's the property.

 

[ajstoneservices]

I only took photo's through the loft hatch as I wasn't happy to climb into the roof space.
The property is an ex council house(semi) built about 1950. It show movement on every internal door head. Has slipped on the dpc. Wall are bulging in places (wall ties failed?) Some of the boot lintels have also moved. But that stack............ it spans the landing and a bedroom.

The owners moved in a few weeks ago and a surveyor has said it's nothing to worry about. Well it scared the **** out of me.
I looked at the houses around and noticed one had had the chimney removed so I went and spoke to the tenant who told me the chimney had not been removed but had fallen onto the landing.

I have advised it is removed and issued a warning notice to cover my arse.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Looks well dodgy, however overall picture would have given a better perspective of the problem, who did those temporary wooden support, real disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Doggit]

It sounds as though there's been subsistence; has it been dealt with, and was there a surveyors report. The stack's been braced, but I think I'd advise removing it. Is the loft boarded, or just joists and insulation; I'b be inclined to put a few loftboards up there. whilst the works being done.

 

[ajstoneservices]

I went there to price for installing a liner and I know very little about the property.
The previous owner had someone fix the chimney The timber support was probably added recently.

It shows subsidence in several areas with no sign of proper repairs/underpinning having been made.

The loft has not been boarded. It does have about 150mm of insulation. I did suggest they board it asap.

 

[^woody^]

That crack in the external stack indicates that the chimney is structurally unsound and the surveyor totally incompetent.

if it can't be removed then it would most likely need and steel beam from front to back, or a two from side to side

 

[ajstoneservices]

Thanks guys.
I got the distinct impression that the owner was inclined to believe the surveyor and not some tradesman out to make a few quid. Oh well, he's the expert.

 

[ajstoneservices]

Double post.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Looking at the corbelling (?), some of it is with cement mortar, the original is not. Where the strut (column) is, the two bricks its supporting are totally hanging of their mortar. So it was a right old bodge up from day one. I would take it down or put in some serious steel work to support the stack on some thing more substantial.
Frank