Chim-chimney

How often do you look at your roof? I can say that my roof, being way up there, doesn't get much of my attention. But earlier this summer, while lounging in the backyard my eyes traveled up to that big plain and found this..

Oh My! Now I'm not a masonry expert, but I was pretty sure that wasn't what chimneys look like. Here's another view. Can you see the brick in the gutter? In this shot it just looks like another leaf, but believe me it's a brick. On the roof.

Thus began my education into chimneys. I heard a lot of this: "Oh no, we don't do rebuilds. Used to. Don't anymore." The guys that did come out would give a whistle about the steepness of my roof and quote off some ridiculously high estimate. Not good. But then we found a guy not afraid of the roof, who seemed to know what he was doing and was reasonably priced. Here's he is (or maybe one of his crew) up there working hard yesterday.

There's guys were really terrific. They tore down the old chimney, built a new one, swept out the chimney and then put a liner down it to prevent this from happening again for a long time. They were done and gone in five hours. My only complaint was that not once during the afternoon did the crew burst into song and dance up there with brushes in their hands and sooty faces. A tad bit disappointing I must say.

One thing was for sure, it was a crazy noisy project. Marco stayed outside and kept on eye on the whole operation. The chimney guy was worried that all the noise would make him a nervous wreck. But during the noisiest part of the day, the part where my old chimney was being dropped brick by brick into the back of their truck, I went to check on the dog. Passed out cold on the back porch! What a guy! The cats on the other hand were basket cases. Poor Jack had the worst time. After it was all over we went searching for the cats. We found the girls quick enough, but not Jack. We searched and searched in all his usual haunts and then in just any place we could think he might have jammed himself. Eventually he came out on his own and we all so relieved to see him we dove after him. That sent him scurrying away faster than I've ever seen him move. We found him again squeezed behind all the board games in the basement. We coaxed him out, but he was still skittish for the rest of the night, jumping a mile at any little noise. Poor, poor little guy!

Anyway here's the new chimney with its shiny little hat. Now, we should probably do something about those gutters..