Antique houses bring unanticipated happenstances, especially when boobs were the previous contractors, or owners They sure can spoil the brew with inappropriate fixes. Such was the case with this week's debacle. Lifting the house and repairing the foundation has gone very well. It has had a miriad of good side effects: cut down on the drafts in the house, it made the place look so much neater on the exterior, it has given us bricks to repurpose into walkways. At the same time it has had a few bad side effects. Today's entry describes one of those side effects.
Several days ago I entered the attic to purge contents. I had help that day, and I was grateful for it. Thanks to L for all the help, it made a difference. Upon entering the attic I happened to look towards the chimney and the window only to notice that light was emanating from the chimney. No, it is not a usual light source. There definitely appeared to be a problem of some sort. Disintegrating chimney? Could be. We are talking 1870 or so here.....further investigation showed that it was likely to take a dive if not dealt with quickly, not to mention the bigger problem of carbon monoxide poisoning from the fumes escaping the swiss cheese like surface of the flue. Oh, it just never ends when living in an antique. Sometimes it gets pretty frustrating, other times it gets expensive. This time it is both. After examination we realized that the raising the house off of the foundation, raised the roof off of the house, because a former contractor or homeowner tarred every orrafice of the house whether it was an appropriate application or not. I guesss they wanted to get their money's worth out of the bucket of tar, yet instead they made a giant mess, black tar gobs all over the house and a peculiar irregular line where the house meets the roof or a wing meets another section of the house. The normal construction of such calls for flashing to do this job. One competent contractor did do that, it was flashed correctly, but that contractor was followed up by some boob who proceeded to smear the place with tar. When the house was raised the tar was adhered to the chimney and the chimney raised off of the house with the roof. This created holes throughout the chimney which allowed light and fumes to enter the house. Oh yeah, not safe, in fact very dangerous. It had to be repaired immediately. A thousand dollars in supplies, and four days later the repair is completed. This is the kind of thing that kills you as the owner of an old house. You have to fix all of these nigly nagging problems and when you sell the house you don't get a dime back. As long as it has a chimney, nobody cares if it is new or old as long as it works. Well, it works now, but boy it was a buster.
Viola! new chimney....24 blocks, 65 pounds each, carrier up a ladder to the second story roof of the house. Too much like work.
Congrats to Mr and D for coming to the rescue and making the house livable again. No hot water and heat for two days is a bit painful. The two knights in shining armor saved the day again. We are all just too old for this stuff!
Here are some photos of what was going on before the roof popped its top to steal our attention.....
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