The Chimney.....

I was worried last night, thinking about how rubbish the "mortar" was between the bricks, how the stack went off at an angle rather than straight up, how a roof beam was somehow incorporated into the structure and how this huuuge stack of bricks was now unsupported by the walls we removed.. just standing there, whilst not needed or required at all..
I started to research scaffolding etc, and other bonkers ideas involving a Tele Handler with a bucket... and then more or less settled on encasing the old chimney with new Ytong bricks and shoving rebar down the side of it and throwing concrete behind it to create a solid stack.

Maria woke up and discussed it with her parents, upon which her dad said, oh no problem, I'll take it down!!!!

Leaning on the roof under 45 degrees with ladders, a couple of bits of rope tying the ladders together, he took it down brick by brick, with the whole chimney stack wobbling away during it..

He took it right down to roof level, where I continued (The whole stack was super wobbly by now) until I hit the top of the ceiling in the room, Noticing how the stack acted like jelly, I grabbed a 6ft steel tube, shoved it between the big roof beam and the chimney stack and levered the whole thing down (3M!!) with a light push!

So now, chimney is no more :)

Anyhow, pics!

Greeted by this this morning, i think it actually started to lean over slightly overnight, probably due to the roof beam being incorporated in the stack just in the top right of the pic above the ceiling.

 2 hours later... it's gone!

The hole left in the roof, I ended up making a nice lid for it using bits of wood from the crate the cement mixer came in, and bitumen roofing felt which was bought as Damp Proof Coursing between the founds and new walls.

A bit of a different sight now!!
Walls continuing to be taken down.

Ceiling is coming out, cut all the way around the edges with the SDS+ drill to ensure it will part company with the walls properly.
Note the construction of the roof, it's planks nailed to the bottom of the big roof beams, straw matting with bits of wire and then render flicked up at it.

The wall has vanished right down to the foundations.

And, the ceiling GONE!

Different angle

That's all for today... tomorrow leveling out all the rubble, filling it up with sand and then sticking the insulation in, DPM (Damp Proof Membrane), rebar mesh and then concrete!