Domestic chimney collapse.

[tony1851]

Interesting vid here form the LABC site showing what can happen if removing a chimney breast without proper precations.

 

[phatboy]

Is that without proper precautions, or not having a clue what one is doing?!

 

[^woody^]

Was there nothing at all supporting it or something but not sufficient?

 

[geraldthehamster]

Glad I wasn't sitting beneath the ceiling below that

 

[Ian H]

On the plus side, there will be lots of natural light in the bathroom and back bedroom.

 

[wessex101]

Was there nothing at all supporting it or something but not sufficient?

It was completely unsupported, the builder was removing the chimney breast from the ground floor up and hadn't bothered to put in any temporary supports for the stack.

 

[tony1851]

Was there nothing at all supporting it or something but not sufficient?

It's on the LABC website, and this is how it was described:

'One of our officers recently visited a site for unauthorised work after a phone call from concerned neighbours who could hear a cracking sound.


On arrival the completely unsupported chimney breast was being removed from the ground floor up through into the roof space and was already showing signs of severe stress. He instructed the ‘builder’ to get out of the property whilst trying to secure a structural engineer to design a solution.

The clip serves as a visual reminder of the significance of getting it wrong!

Fortunately everyone was out of the building but unfortunately too late to arrive at a solution to save the chimney.'

 

[wessex101]

Demolition from the ground up! What could possibly go wrong? Maybe the builder was scared of heights?

It was interesting in the article that LABC still accept gallows brackets. I thought they were persona non grata these days.

 

[John D v2.0]

don't think anyone posted the original link:
https://www.labc.co.uk/news/how-get-it-right-removing-chimney-right-way