How to rebuild a firelace.

The next task was to rebuild the bottom third of the chimney and replace most of the timbers in the fireplace. As you can see it was a bit tired and the bottom had come way from the wall enough for me to be wary of it. 
This was how it looked at the beginning 



Here is where it had slipped at the bottom section






This was way over my level knowledge of the building game so I called in someone 
who did know what they were talking about. I asked a professional builder mate, who has specialised in old French places for years, to give it a once over and he assured me that the majority of it was absolutely sound with no cause for concern. The slippage he said was due to age and the wood in the wall decaying. The cracks were old, however if I was worried he said it would be simple enough to pin it about a third of the way up and then demolish the bottom stone work, replace the rotten wood and then rebuild the stonework up to the pins. 
Sounds easy enough, and in reality it is, but it was without doubt the scariest job I have done to date and for the time it took me to do it I constantly lived with the slight edge that I would be squashed flat in a second under several tons of slate. Luckily the builders of a a couple of hundred years ago knew a thing or two about what they were doing and I lived to tell the tale.

How these chimneys were constructed was the wall would be built up to 1.5 meters or a little more then they would lay in two shorter shaped bits of wood (see the bottom two in my pictures) and on them they would lay two longer bits of wood. (thick oak).
They would would build up the wall for a meter or so and lay/fir a cross beam (mantle ) on the outer edge of two sticking out bits (don’t know what they are called)
Then they would also start building the chimney tapering it in to form the fire place until it was about half a meter out from the wall. 
They would then continue to build up the wall and chimney up at the same time on top of this and every half meter or slightly more they would lay in a big oblong piece of slate (about 150mm x 100 mm x 500 to 700 mm) buried in the wall and extending out. These were the key stones that held the chimney to the wall, with the chimney being built around these and the whole thing just canterlevered itself to stability. The higher it went the stronger it became. 

So how do you repair the bottom third and all the wood, well it goes like this  

Sharpen up some 22mm threaded steel bars



WARNING:- What you don’t see in the above picture is another near fatal accident about to happen because I was wanting to push on with the job. 
I was happily grinding away without first assessing if there was anything flammable in the line of fire of the grinder sparks…. Like the two one gallon petrol tins half full of petrol for the mower and chain saw that the sparks were happily cascading over. Nearly had a “full trouser” moment when I realised what was happening and quickly removed the petrol and any other flammable material out of the way.
Make sure when you are doing jobs like this that you assess the risk first. 
All it takes is about a minute of your time before you are about to start the job, 
Just stand back have a look around and ask:- 
“What could go wrong?” 
“What are the dangers?” 
“Are my leads clear? 
“Are my access and exit routes good and clear”
“Am I using the right tool for the job”
“Am I wearing the right protective clothing, goggles, gloves, hard hat, ear defenders etc”
Then when satisfied start the job. 


Once we had the sharpened bars we had to choose a suitable stone to drill below and into the chimney void and then into the gable.



Once done push the spikes in and then (with a nut on the end to avoid damaging the thread) hammer into the wall. Once firmly in use a large stilson (pipe) wrench to screw them in even further.
Drill holes in a strong beam and slide over the bars and use nuts to hold in place. Then prop up the ends of the beam with acro props secured in place with some nails to prevent slipping




Once in place and all secure, take a deep breath and carefully begin to take down the stone work (and from personal experience keep taking sphincter clenching glances up at the rest of the chimney)


 


Until it is all down



This is the view that had me arse twitching 




Then remove the old wood, treat what’s left with bug killer and preservative and replace with new wood to your own design. (we used new wood for the inserts and cross beam but old wood from the roof for the new (additional) supports. 

The oak support beams (horizontal) go all the way through the meter thick wall (replacing the old ones) and are wedged and fixed in place with stones and lime mortar having first been treated with several coats of wood treatment and preserver.

I have been told I didn’t need to put in the outer vertical supports but we felt more comfortable with them in place helping to hold it all up and we are very happy with the rustic look of it. 








Then it was just a case of building up the stonework to the pins. You can see the key stones that I mentioned earlier here.





And there it was done. 





And this is how it looks now without any treatment yet





So that’s how to do a fireplace if you ever need to, but make sure you have a pro in to do the pinning and to check the whole thing first.

So it is late June 2009 I am due back to sea and we had achieved in 6 weeks:- 
Fitting two new 5.5 meter beams in the kitchen, 
Building up the oak framework at the back to hold the dorma extension,
Rebuilding the fire place. 

I was off back to sea and due home at the end of July when we were going to pop “daahnn sarrf” to near Montpellier for a mate's wedding party and when we returned on Aug 3rd were due to start the new roof.