[NickWa]

We are adding on to the side of our house and the existing chimney will need to go. The chimney goes right down to the basement with it's own foundation. The below grade part will be taken care of by foundation contractor, but I need to get the above grade portion off.

Looking for advice on how to take it down. This side of the house will be opened right up so I am not terribly concerned about damage to the exterior, as long as the underlying structure isn't damaged.

Thank you.

 

[Bud9051]

A small rented electric jack hammer should break those bricks apart easily. What needs to be organized is sending them directly into a dumpster as opposed to just dropping everything on the ground, where it has to be picked up again (IMO).

Determine where you can dispose of them and rent 3 lifts of staging with 2 platforms.

Easy job after that.

Note, don't even think about pulling it over with your truck. Would still need to be broken up and who knows what else would come down.

Bud

 

[NickWa]

A small rented electric jack hammer should break those bricks apart easily. What needs to be organized is sending them directly into a dumpster as opposed to just dropping everything on the ground, where it has to be picked up again (IMO).

Determine where you can dispose of them and rent 3 lifts of staging with 2 platforms.

Easy job after that.

Note, don't even think about pulling it over with your truck. Would still need to be broken up and who knows what else would come down.

Bud

Thanks. I wasn't sure if an electric jack hammer would be strong enough but I really don't know how well all the masonry is put together.

And no, I wouldn't attempt to pull it over myself. Thought maybe a loader could push it over from the top, but it looks like I need to DIY it now. The fun part will be the full sized concrete slab capping the top.

 

[Bud9051]

An electric jack hammer with the right point can drill through that top concrete allowing you to cut it in pieces to get down.

Bud

 

[P C D]

Lay some plywood over the roof next to the chimney to protect the roof.
Use a sledge hammer to break the concrete slab.
Use a cold chisel, hammer and pry-bar to loosen the bricks.


Alternatively, if you have six teenagers and a telephone pole lying around, it will take three good hits at the base to bring the whole chimney down.

 

[stadry]

fortunate/hopefully the op will ignore the above post,,, someone doesn't realize brickwork's tied to the structure by brick ties
we'd use bosch bulldog or sds class hammer

 

[P C D]

fortunate/hopefully the op will ignore the above post,,, someone doesn't realize brickwork's tied to the structure by brick ties
we'd use bosch bulldog or sds class hammer

Judging by your concerns and advice, you don't understand how gravity works, Stadry.

 

[Old Thomas]

I have removed them with a sledge hammer, regular hammer and a mason’s chisel. Of course, I was a little younger back then. A jack hammer is pretty heavy and hard to use on a chimney. I would use a hand held rotary hammer with a pointed bit.

 

[Nealtw]

I would star with rental scaffold the kind where the supplier sets it up and goes over the safety rules for working on it.

 

[stadry]

'jack hammer' MAY be a misnomer,,, recommended bosch,,, even 30# ( max for bdge deck resurfacing ) gets heavy,,, we work from ladder jacks using our own reinforced planks

 

[Nealtw]

https://www.toolboxbuzz.com/head-to-head/best-sds-rotary-hammer-drill-head-to-head-testing/

 

[NickWa]

Cool, thanks everyone. Sounds like the gist of it is start at the top, use an demolition hammer drill, work down. The tool rental company here rents the Hilti TE 1000-AVR which looks big but manageable***, and will hopefully make short work of the brick.

Am I right to assume that the structure would simply be stacked bricks all the way up, or would there be an interior wood or cinder block structure?

I also have to remove all the stucco on my house, which I assume this type of hammer drill would be ideal for that too?



***Edit: Looking at a video of the Hilti TE 1000-AVR, it is big and I don't know if I could wield it up in the air - especially all day peeling stucco off. It looks more like something you would use to break up concrete floor or something like that.

Should I be looking for an SDS drill like the Hitachi DH 24PF3? Or something like the Hilti TE 500?

 

[Nealtw]

Don't forget to protect that gas meter.

You want to start in side on the face brick or what have you and then you will see what you have inside, it won't be wood.

 

[NickWa]

Don't forget to protect that gas meter.

You want to start in side on the face brick or what have you and then you will see what you have inside, it won't be wood.

This is what the inside wall looks like - all brick as well. Fireplace is an insert with a stainless liner. I have never pulled it out to look inside though and see what's on the interior.

 

[Nealtw]

This is what the inside wall looks like - all brick as well. Fireplace is an insert with a stainless liner. I have never pulled it out to look inside though and see what's on the interior.

I would expect to find drywall behind most of that.

Cover the floor with sheet poly and then 1/2" osb and hang poly to manage dust and dropped bricks.



Then when you have finished inside you can use 2 sheets of OSB to cover the hole from the inside before you go outside.

 

[stadry]

we don't use anything as large as what's shown,,, we own bosch sds+ & that's the size we use,,, also own larger guns,,, diy'ers w/o experience working off scaffolding / ladder jacks advised to do the same

 

[NickWa]

Ok, so would this be appropriate with a chisel blade? If that's what it is I will just buy one instead of paying $60 a day to rent.

https://www.amazon.ca/Bosch-11255VS...ocphy=9001160&hvtargid=pla-522859998841&psc=1

 

[DoomsDave]

@NickWa, nice to meet you!

Be glad you have the luxury of removing the chimney yourself in an orderly way, as opposed to Mother Nature doing it . . .

Be particularly careful about planning disposal. That debris will be heavy, and if you've never done that type of thing before, disposal can morph into a huge job of its own. As I've found. The hard way, of course!

If there's a way to get the brick "rip-rap" directly into a disposal container as you go along, I'd do it. If you have to rent chutes, ramps, etc. which make it easy to get EVERYTHING into the dumpster in one shot (unless they're over-the-top expensive), trust me they'll be worth it!

I suspect you already know, so I post this as a kind of public service announcement.

And do please show us your progress and when you're done! And thanks to Bud, Neal and the rest for your technical thoughts.