Chimney #1

One of the first things that I got to demolish, after Roger taught me the technique was how to take out an old chimney. Not as easy or as fun as it sounds. Soot is really really black and it never comes out of your nose. But the idea is to pick one row of bricks...

But you can't just pick away at it, you have to hit it with all you're worth. I hit it until my teeth rattled, and the sledge hammer vibrated from the end of my fingers down to my toes without much result. Then Roger showed me how it's done. Yep, all it took for him was one mighty swing and wahla the first huge chunk came out!

Then after working my way around the chimney I could see light at the other side. It was so amazing. And dirty. Did I mention how dirty soot is? I looked like a chimney sweep when I was done, but I was seeing progress and things started to get fun.

The fun part is that when you get a couple of rows out it goes thunk, chunk and the whole chimney slides down in one huge piece. Then you have to take it all apart. See at the top? That's where it goes up to the second floor. We couldn't walk under it for a few days until we got up there and got that part out. We were pretty blessed that nobody got thunked with falling bricks. They are pretty solid and it made the whole house shake when it all came tumbling down.

The last and longest part was the clean up. But we could see light from the window, and not just through a little break in the chimney. I could only pack about five bricks at a time, lots of trips to the trailer, but once all the bricks were hauled out we were on to other bigger and better things.