If you want to know exactly what happens when Norwich Roofers carries out a chimney take-down in Poringland, this page walks through every stage of the work.
A chimney take-down starts with a proper inspection at close range. Ground-level assessment from the pavement or garden tells you something, but not enough. The state of the pointing, the condition of the flashing, whether the stack is moving - none of that can be judged reliably without getting up to roof level.
Before a price can be given and before work starts, a roofer should be able to look at the chimney from scaffold or, at minimum, from the eaves via a ladder. What is discovered at that point can affect how the job is priced: a stack that appears to have two courses of bad pointing from the ground might turn out to have soft mortar four courses down, or a flashing that looks attached may have pulled clear at the back. The inspection sets the scope.
Safe chimney work means proper access. For any stack that stands above first-floor eaves height - which covers almost every chimney stack on a standard house - the correct approach is to erect scaffold. A chimney take-down involves dismantling heavy masonry course by course, sometimes in awkward positions, and the debris has to come down safely. Ladder-only work is not adequate for this.
Scaffold for a typical domestic chimney take-down is usually a tower or a section of tube-and-fitting scaffold set around or alongside the chimney. The cost and time to erect it is built into the job price. The scaffold stays up until the work is finished and inspected - it should not come down before you have had a chance to look at the finished reinstatement.
Before bricks start coming down, the surrounding roof area is protected. Felt, boards or other sheeting is laid over the tiles or slates around the chimney to protect them from falling debris. Chimney bricks are heavy and a single brick dropped without care can smash a tile or cause damage to guttering. Good roofers take the time to protect what is already there.
A debris chute, a rubble bag on the scaffold or a controlled lowering system is used to bring bricks down. The specific method depends on the access, the height of the stack and the layout of the scaffold. Bricks should not simply be thrown from height - the noise, the damage risk and the safety implications rule that out on a residential property.
Dismantling starts at the top. The chimney pots come off first, then the haunching mortar that beds them, then the brickwork course by course. The bricks in an old stack are often soft and the mortar between them may be lime-based and relatively easy to break. In other cases - particularly where cement repointing has been done over the years - the mortar is harder than the bricks and breaking the courses apart takes more time and effort.
The stack comes down to just below the roofline. At that point there is a decision to make about the internal void. In a house with a chimney breast still standing inside, the void typically runs from the stack down through each floor to the original fireplace openings. The top of that void, in the roof space, needs to be capped off securely at this stage - either with a fitted cap, a concrete fill or a combination of both, depending on the size of the flue and the local preference. This stops birds, bats and cold air from using the old flue as an entry point.
Where the stack passed through the roof, there is now an open section in the roof covering and, potentially, in the roofing felt or sarking beneath it. The roof timbers around the old chimney opening may need minor repairs - old chimney trimmers (the timbers cut to accommodate the stack) sometimes show rot or movement, and this is the time to deal with it while access is good.
Any felt or sarking that has been disturbed is repaired or replaced across the opening. This is the hidden layer that backs up the tiles or slates, so its condition matters. A roofer who reinstates the tiles without checking and repairing the felt beneath is leaving a potential weak point.
This is the most visible part of the job and the one most homeowners focus on. The roof covering - tiles, slates or flat-roof membrane, depending on the property - is reinstated across the area where the stack stood. The aim is a weathertight, tidy finish that sits flush with the surrounding roof.
Matching the existing roof covering takes care. For plain clay tiles, the colour and weathering of reclaimed tiles will be closer to the existing roof than new ones. For concrete interlocking tiles, getting the right profile is usually straightforward but colour match is harder because concrete fades over time. For slates, origin matters - a Welsh slate will not look the same as a Spanish one at close range, even if the dimensions are similar.
Ridge tiles at the top of the repaired area, if applicable, are bedded in mortar or dry-fixed depending on the system used on the rest of the roof. The finished patch should look deliberate - not invisible, but neat and correctly detailed.
Once the reinstatement is complete, the finished area should be inspected while the scaffold is still in place. This is the moment to check that the tile or slate courses are sitting correctly, that there are no gaps in the coverage, and that the ridge or hip detail at the top of the patch is properly sealed. Any snags are easier to deal with now than after the scaffold has been stripped.
As a homeowner, ask to be shown the finished area before the scaffold comes down. A roofer who is confident in the quality of the work will have no objection to this. Look for even courses, properly bedded or clipped tiles, and no visible daylight through the ridge or at the edges of the patch.
A chimney take-down generates a considerable volume of rubble - bricks, mortar, old flaunching, chimney pots and any old lead work. All of this comes off site. Waste disposal is included in the job price for a properly run chimney take-down. The scaffold boards and protection are removed, the gutters and surroundings are checked for debris, and the site is left clean.
Chimney pots are worth mentioning separately. Old terracotta pots are sometimes saleable or reusable, and if you want to keep them it is worth saying so before the job starts. Otherwise they go with the rest of the rubble.
The time a chimney take-down takes depends on the size and complexity of the job. Erecting and stripping the scaffold adds time either side of the main work. Complications such as a large stack, a difficult roof pitch, deteriorated timbers or a flat-roof reinstatement section will add to the programme.
If you want to talk through the stages for your specific property, call Norwich Roofers and we will arrange a look at the chimney before giving you a price.
No obligation · We usually respond within 2 hours
Storm damage, active leak, damaged ridge - we aim to be on-site within 24 hours.
