How'd you get up there?

[Bugboy]

I'm going to be putting up a new chimney in the next week or two and am wondering how the heck I get way up there to work.

I've got a 10/12 roof and will have about 12' of chimney sticking up above the roof line. How did you guys set up to gut clear up there to install all of that chimney and cap? What about routine cleaning?

I was thinking of making a 16' ladder with a articulated work platform off of it. The ladder would rest on the ground and the platform would rest against the roof. This would allow me to climb up and do the install and also clean the chimney later on. The platform would have a plywood section to provide a surface to work off of.

Should I put some find of semi-permanent cleat on the roof to attach the end of the platform to? or should I make an extension that goes up and hooks over the peak to keep the end of the platform from shifting?

I have a tractor with loader to move the whole affair around, but the loader will not lift high enough to allow me to work on the chimney. This is an earthberm house, I can step up onto the roof from the back yard.

Any ideas, pics or drawings would be appreciated.

 

[bluefrier]

How'd you get up there? I would not go up there, at 12' above the roof I would call a chimney installer.

 

[wellbuilt home]

I like to put the cap on the top of the pipe then add one more piece of pipe to the bottom if you have 12' of pipe thru the roof and you add the top with 2 4' pieces together you can sit on the roof and work the pipes and never have to get up there . I have 30'of pipe with a 12on 17 pitch and i just take off my stove pipe over the stove and push my 8" flu brush in about 6" ,then i put a hefty bag around the pipe and tape it in place ,then push the 4'pole thru the bag and tighten the pole .Iwork my brush up and down adding 4' FG poles as i go up. when i get to the top I bang the top with the brush to knock off the flaks of ash .I use my rife scope to see if its clean. Then i pull the poles out . The ash stays in the bag .I mite get two cups of ash .

 

[fossil]

Anything steeper than about 7/12 is near impossible (not to mention unsafe and terrifying) to walk on. When I had to get up on a 12/12, I used ladder hooks. I pulled the fly section off a 20' extension ladder and affixed the ladder hooks to the top rung. They had casters on the side opposite the hooks, so i could (from atop another ladder resting on the ground and against the eave) easily run the ladder up the roof until the hooks were clear of the ridge, then flip it over and hook it (length required depends, of course, on your roof). Then I could safely scale the roof. A safety (comfort) line secured somewhere on the opposite side of the house and flung over the roof ridge was a real nice thing to have, as well. I'd think that if you're bound & determined to do this thing yourself, and then to clean it yourself on into the future, then you'd want to build that chimney extension up above the roof using multiple lengths of chimney pipe, so that you can go up and dismantle it in manageable lengths, starting with the top section & cap. Whatever you do...be careful! Rick

 

[Ncountry]

Do not forget to remove keys from any vehicle you attach safety rope to .
.

 

[fossil]

Do not forget to remove keys from any vehicle you attach safety rope to .
.

:lol: "Hey guys, watch this." %-P Rick

 

[cmonSTART]

"Honey, I'm going to the store. I'll be back in a bit." :bug:

 

[snydley]

Do not forget to remove keys from any vehicle you attach safety rope to .
.

"Honey, I'm going to the store. Anything you need?" :kiss:

 

[Lyman51]

How about a rented Cherry-picker on a truck? or a contractor's idle Lull lift? Don't you need to add guy wires to a chimney 12' long? I'd want a very stable platform to work off.

 

[savageactor7]

You should reconsider relocating the chimney more toward the center of the house to make cleaning easier. But if you persist make sure you plan of some kind of guy wires to stabilize the chimney in the wind...and burn on the hot side...

...really if I were you I call a pro, you need some professional advice.

 

[Bugboy]

We went ahead and gave it a try. I think it's going to work OK and I can set it up and take it down by myself.

 

[jeffman3]

How'd you get up there? I would not go up there, at 12' above the roof I would call a chimney installer.

Sounds like a job for a professional. Our chimney sticks way way up too, and we had it installed and we also let the installer do the cleaning. He had some trouble with the install. we apparently had 18 inch ceiling joists and 22 inch roof rafters,(or something similar, I may have that backwards, but they were not the same, so straight up would not work :sick: ) Two 45 degree elbows, and a section of pipe between them, and all this very little space, we have a safe professionally installed chimney that we don't have to worry about. We had a brace system put on the chimney that attaches to the roof.

 

[savageactor7]

Hey Bugboy it's looks like you have one of those 'earth' or 'cave' homes where a part of the house in below ground...and the other half is aligned to capture the winter sun...yes, No???

 

[KeithO]

Anything steeper than about 7/12 is near impossible (not to mention unsafe and terrifying) to walk on. When I had to get up on a 12/12, I used ladder hooks. Whatever you do...be careful! Rick

And there I was on my 12/12 roof thinking I was a wimp..... Seriously though, the sandy layer on aged shingles make moving around up there the equivalent of walking on a landslide.. If a layer of shingles were to shear away from the roof nails you are a goner.

 

[Cazimere]

We went ahead and gave it a try. I think it's going to work OK and I can set it up and take it down by myself.

Looks like a mighty fine way to get hurt.
Call a professional. It'll be much cheaper than the hospital bills.

 

[WidowMaker]

Besure to have your wife video every time to go up there. We want to see this train wreck....at least its not far to the ground once you clear the roof edge..

PS

Thats a neat looking house, how bout a picture from the front???

 

[fossil]

We went ahead and gave it a try. I think it's going to work OK and I can set it up and take it down by myself.

Clever rig, but I don't understand why you don't just lay your ladder on the roof & build a little platform with an inverted "V" bottom that will straddle the ridge. Simple, safe, not nearly so scary. Rick

 

[KeithO]

I suspect the stove will be located neave the eves somewhere and not below the ridge. That would be the reason for the tall section of chimney above the penetration point. Presumeably his rig is built to allow him to get to the chimney cap once it is installed.

I would suggest using the contraption only once to install the chimney and using cables to stabilize the tall projecting portion instead of rigid stays. Then if you need to clean it, remove the telescopic stovepipe in the house (you were going to do that, right ?), lower the chimney into the house until the cap is just above the roof and you have a much safer configuration to clean. Now a regular ladder will allow access to clean and remove the chimney cap.

I just cleaned my chimney yesterday for the first time and couldn't believe how tight the steel brush went into the pipe. Once entered, it was impossible to pull out and had to go down through all the way. I actually bought both the steel and poly brushes and I think that was the last time I will use the steel brush. If the brush diameter was about 1/8" smaller it would have been possible to move it up and down and it would have been a lot less critical. I only got about a cupfull of deposits, so I could have cleaned the chimney cap and called it a day. And I will admit to burning some "suspect" wood last winter when I ran low in March and my friendly wood supplier came to deliver 2 cord of wood on the back of 2 pickup trucks.....

Be safe
Keith

 

[fossil]

I suspect the stove will be located neave the eves somewhere and not below the ridge. That would be the reason for the tall section of chimney above the penetration point. Presumeably his rig is built to allow him to get to the chimney cap once it is installed.

Yes, of course, you're right, Keith. Nevermind. Still, it seems like if the chimney extending above the roof is in sections, you could lay the ladder up there, fashion a little platform that locks onto the ladder rungs at the roof height of chimney penetration, go up and remove the top 4' or 6' section of chimney with the cap attached, bring it down & clean it separately, go up, clean the rest from up top if you want, reassemble. Either that, or a helicopter. Rick

 

[begreen]

I may be missing something, but why would the pipe be higher than 2' over the ridge of the house? If so, wouldn't a basic ladder jack hung off the ridge gain access? Or is the stove going to be located toward the back of the house?

PS: Kudos for the earthbermed house. How is it working out for you?

 

[fossil]

Yer talkin' about ladder hooks. Ladder jacks are for rigging a walking plank between two extension ladders. In any case, I think that if I'm beginning to understand this, the chimney penetration is somewhere up the roof where it has to be extended fairly tall so as to meet the chimney height requirements...what is it, something like 2' above anything within 10', or something along those lines? Thus the 12' chimney. It ain't gonna be a continous piece of pipe, it'll be assembled from sections. That's why it seems to me that a section above the stabilizing rods' connection point could be removed for cleaning. My shop stove installation isn't as challenging as this one, but that's basically what I'm doing to clean it. Rick

 

[begreen]

Yep, ladder hooks. Tx Rick. I'm wondering if the stove location couldn't be moved more towards the front of the house. It would make installation and cleaning a bit easier if the stack was only 6' high.

 

[fossil]

Dura-Vent. ~1/4 turn, and off it pops. The piece I remove is just an 18"-er, but it could just as easily be a 48". Rick

 

[Burd]

We went ahead and gave it a try. I think it's going to work OK and I can set it up and take it down by myself.

Dude are you tring to kill your self theres got to be a better way then that.Try someting like roof jacks on the other side of the roof.set jacks and put down a plank and stand on that.
when there take pipe apart and clean pipe.
IF THIS DOESNT WORK call pro I would love to see more pictures of this rig you got going on so I can show the guys at work what your doing.PS take out life insuance. :bug:

 

[snowtime]

Looks a little iffy to me too. For general work on my 12 by 12 roof which is 35' high I use a 48' extension ladder. I just installed a T6 and I just layed the ladder on the roof , braced the bottom of course and then installed the chimney. Mine is 11' above the roof exit to meet the 10' 2' rule. You just have to put the last pieces together and muscle it up and on. If its too harry then rent a couple of ladders and get a friend to help you.
I built mine so I could clean from inside. Why keep going up there?