| January 24, 2003
Mortar the damper in place with refractory mortar. The two
halves of the smoke chamber are set on top of the throat. They can
be offset or shifted around or even tilted, just as long as they don't
interfere with the opening of the damper. The rebar is bent to fit
the shape of the chimney, and double tie-rods (pencil-rod) is wrapped
around the first bend. More rebar is tie-wired to the uprights,
overlapping the joints 15".
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| The brick shell is built-up to the top of the smoke
chamber, and filled with concrete. After the concrete hardens,
straighten the rebars to point straight up. Two more tie-rods are wrapped
around the top bend, and then a single tie-rod every 18" the rest of
the way up.
The yellow string keeps the corners of the brick shell plumb. |
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Up until this point, the work has been done from on top of
ladders and a plank. but with all the heavy lifting, scaffolding is
needed. A kind friend lent me his, as his house was covered in
scaffolding four years (some of his kids had never seen the house without
it, and decorated it for Christmas).
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| January 25, 2003
The first of seven 12" x 24" clay flue liners is set with
refractory mortar on top of the throat opening. The bricks that form
the chimney are built up to the top of the flue liner, and then the gap
between them is filled with concrete. I clamped a couple boards on
top of the scaffolding and ran four plumb strings to show the four corners
of the chimney. Two shoulders that pitch forward will make the
transition between the firebox and chimney. Right now I'm
leaving them flat to have something to stand on. |
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January 29, 2003
The stack is built up as high as the top of the ceiling joists.
In order to meet seismic code, two large straps are wrapped 6" around
the two outer rebar uprights, and are bolted to a pair of 8' long 2x4s
that are nailed across four ceiling joists. 1/4" pencil rod
ties are wrapped above and below the straps, forming a bond beam.
The space between the flue liner and brick shell is filled again with
concrete (1 60lb. sack will do about four rows of brick high). |
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| Interior view of how the straps wrapping the rebar are
bolted to 2x4s nailed across the ceiling joists. |
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| Because the Rumford fireplace goes straight up, it makes
framing problems if you want it to be outside the house instead of
protruding inside. In order to keep the 2" clearance to
combustibles, I had to cut the top plate out completely, something
alarming to a building inspector. To tie the two walls together, I
bolted a 4" x 1/2" thick piece of angle iron to the top plate,
which satisfied the inspector. Note the steel stud framing in front
of the fireplace to screw the drywall to. |
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| 2/1/03
As the chimney got closer to the roofline, it got more awkward to
work. Finally I was out the top, but that meant a lot of stooping
for the first few rows. My back was really sore that night from
hauling all the brick and concrete up and stooping. |
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| A better look at the space between the flue liner which
contains the rebar. Back east they would be horrified to hear that
we fill the space with concrete, as eastern codes call for a 1"
minimum air space as an insulator, and they're convinced that you'll burn
the house down if it gets filled in. If anything, they fill it with
perlite or some loose fill. |
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| 2/2/03
Starting the corbels for the finial top. Most of the work is at
night now. |
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