On 05/11/2014 16:04, charles wrote:
In article , Andrew Gabriel
wrote:
In article , David
writes:
Need a couple of unused chimneys capping.

First quote:

scaffolding £600 parts and labour £250

Looks like they may not want the job.

IIRC, I paid £450 for the scaffolding, and I did the work myself, but
that also included repointing the chimney and redoing the flaunching. I
got a lead guy aroumd to redo the leadwork. Also aligned the TV aerial
whilst up there. (I worked out the angle from google maps, and used the
car satnav to get north, and then set the aerial. Then I discovered that
if I looked very carefully at the horizon along the line of the aerial
from the top of the chimney, I could just about see the transmitter 25
miles away.)

Gotchas about capping chimneys?

Most of the chimneys round here just have a half round tile over the
top. Is this enough to keep out the rain, and allow some ventilation? I
know that rain is coming down the chimney because the hearth is open
and soot is coming down despite having swept the chimney.

Ventilating is very important or the chimney fills with condensation and
wrecks the internal decorations and plasterwork about 5-10 years later.
Must be vented at top and bottom.

You can get vented caps which sit on the pots - earthenware with a ring
of vent holes around (which are mortared on to the pots), or metal
(Brewer's) caps (which have a strap around the pot which I didn't like so
I fitted them a different way). Another option is to remove the pot and
seal the top with a paving slab, and put a vented brick in the side of
the chimney near the top.

These all have quite different appearance, which may be important if you
don't want to change your chimney's so they don't match everyone else's
anymore. The Brewer's cap is the least visible from the ground. (There
are also Brewer's caps which leave the chimney sufficiently open to still
use it, but I'm not referring to those.)

Ventilation is more important than stopping water getting in, i.e it's
better not to cap it at all than to seal it in a way which kills the
ventilation.

Capping a chimney doesn't stop debris coming detached from the inside and
falling down.

but it does stop birds nesting inside

And Santa Claus climbing down.