Bam, Bam on the Chimney

We decided to spend some of the weekend tearing down more of the chimney. We conquered what might have proven to be the most difficult demolition task as we removed the chimney through the finished part of th e house without destroying any of the walls that cased it in.

Doing so required some interesting techniques, like pictured below where I would climb in the wall to demolish the row of cement that I was standing on.


Once we had gotten that as low as we could (until I couldn't bend my knees out through the studs anymore) we had 5 rows of cement (roughly 225 lbs. or so) of blocks still remaining before we reached the opening in the basement.

With one person swinging, one protecting the furnace, and one grimmacing upstairs as we grunted and yelled, we managed to get the 5 rows down with a controlled fall one row at a time.

We were impressed we didn't break apart anything we weren't supposed to, namely our furnace or our bodies, and once we reached the opening in the basement we decided to quit, knowing that the remaining part of the chimney should be relatively easy to remove.