Pulling down a block chimney?

[Midniteoyl]

Hello,
Hoping to get some thoughts on pulling down a block chimney at our home. Story: older, I think 60’s vintage block chimney that is in very rough shape. Many block have been compromised to the point some have softball sized holes in them. It is beyond salvageable and leaks extensively into the house. Anyways I need to take it down. Talked to a few local masons on the phone, but everyone is just too busy to even get it done before snowfall here. It’s about 20’ from grade to top of it. Upper section is about 30” wide and the bottom angles put to 48” or so due to a fire place inside. As you can see the chimney is completely external to the home other than the fire place. What would be the easiest way to remove this? I have a 12,000lb winch as well as a 40hp tractor. My thoughts are that once the fire place is demolished from the inside out, could this entire thing fall down in one piece? Ideally I would like to weaken the two outside corners of the base, then pull it over, but I hate to be standing near it when I sledge hammer away on the base.

One option I have is I might have a large 25,000lb excavator on site in a month, but the wife will kill me when she sees what that does to her gardens near by

picture here:

IMG_1289.PNG

drive.google.com

Exactly how I did mine. Though I used a thick rope and pulled it instead of using a winch. Caution though, my chimney was tied to the house every few rows. You will need to determine if yours is as well (mostly likely). Once those are cut, you can then pull the thing over. I ended up missing a few ties, but no damage was done.

 

[ponytug]

Around 1986 - while out exploring - my son and I came upon an old homestead. It had a brick and mortar chimney. The "bricks" were chiseled chunks of basaltic lava. They were 6" x 8" and 4" thick. I can't imagine the time it took to hand chisel all those blocks. The homesteader probably had several older children and MANY really sharp tools. I wonder what they did in the mean time - waiting for enough chunks to be chiseled into shape.

Sounds cool. I am always fascinated by what resource limited people manage to achieve, often in ways that seem much easier than modern techniques.

The "old fashioned"ways of cutting stone can be surprisingly quick, and not many of them require sharp tools. There are some nice YouTube videos on stone cutting using just a chisel and steel wedges. Basalt breaks particularly cleanly, so it is relatively easy to work, even though it is quite hard.

If you are interested in older methods;

http://www.quarryscapes.no/text/Publications/factsheet5.pdf

As far as anyone knows, the Egyptians only had copper tools and yet worked some of the hardest stones known to humans into mathematically exact complex curves, not to mention building the pyramids and facing some of them with polished flat onyx. I have seen a red granite column that was round to a thousandth of an inch over 30 odd feet. One of the enduring mysteries is how they managed large diameter drilled holes in hard rocks.

But back to the chimney demolition; I would do it block by block as I would rather assume that the chimney was anchored and find out later that it wasn't, rather than assuming it wasn't and discovering it was...

All the best,

Peter

 

[LouNY]

I haven't heard it mentioned but many of those chimneys actually had a clay tile liner for the flue,
the block or brick was a surround around the tile to support it.

 

[dieselscout80]

If your tractor had a loader use whatever tools to break it up and drop the pieces in the bucket raised as high as possible.

 

[newbury]

It’s about 20’ from grade to top of it.

If that is how high it is I'd do it with something to get me so I could reach the top and take it down big piece at a time like many have mentioned.
I'm cheap and have bought scaffolding to get my feet 12' off the ground, so I'd probably go up and sit on the roof to get the first few feet off the top.

 

[Deere Dude]

If your tractor had a loader use whatever tools to break it up and drop the pieces in the bucket raised as high as possible.

That would be an accident waiting to happen...to the tractor hood.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I've taken down three chimneys. Two of them I started on the roof and took them down piece by piece. With an old chimney it is almost no work to remove a brick, a light tap with a hammer is all it takes to break the mortar bond. The actual work is in carrying the bricks away. If you can drop them in a dumpster from the roof it would be less work than dropping the chimney and picking up all the bricks off of the ground and carrying them to a dumpster. The mortar is also a significant mess and it is a lot easier to manage the mortar if you take it down piece by piece than if you spray it all over the yard.

One chimney I paid a guy to take it down. He went up on the roof and hit it with a sledgehammer. It cracked between the second floor ceiling and the attic, fell over through the bedroom ceiling and landed on the bedroom floor. He paid to fix it, but he lost money on the job. The moral of the story is that chimneys don't always fall straight and don't always fall in the direction you pull them.

 

[bigtiller]

I've taken down three chimneys. Two of them I started on the roof and took them down piece by piece. With an old chimney it is almost no work to remove a brick, a light tap with a hammer is all it takes to break the mortar bond. The actual work is in carrying the bricks away. If you can drop them in a dumpster from the roof it would be less work than dropping the chimney and picking up all the bricks off of the ground and carrying them to a dumpster. The mortar is also a significant mess and it is a lot easier to manage the mortar if you take it down piece by piece than if you spray it all over the yard.

That's exactly the way mine went.

I used an old light weight framing hammer.

 

[ning]

That's exactly the way mine went.

I used an old light weight framing hammer.

When I did my chimney, the part above the roof line was really strongly put together, and after taking it all apart my guess is that they (the previous owners) had had some damage and had someone "repair" the chimney and that repair took the easy way out and only did the obvious visible part, because it took a lot of rotohammer work up there and barely anything right below the roof line. Suspicious...

 

[Midniteoyl]

When I did my chimney, the part above the roof line was really strongly put together, and after taking it all apart my guess is that they (the previous owners) had had some damage and had someone "repair" the chimney and that repair took the easy way out and only did the obvious visible part, because it took a lot of rotohammer work up there and barely anything right below the roof line. Suspicious...

The top and crown probably leaked and whole section was redone. No need to do below unless it was a hazard.