Chimney Rebuilding & Lead Tray
We offer full chimney repair and re-build service. All lead trays welded on site by our highly trained staff.
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Chimney Repairs
Chimneys built many years ago, were often built with no damp trays, allowing water penetration and often a wet patch on the hearth in the room below. The only cure for this is a chimney re-build and installing lead trays.
Neglected stack can be an accident waiting to happen — the prospect of chunks of heavy masonry dislodged by storms, crashing on to the roof above your bedroom isn’t a risk worth taking. So, if your building survey flags up defects, it’s usually advisable to get things sorted sooner rather than later.
Probably the most common issue with chimney stacks is eroded pointing. In itself this may not sound too serious, but if neglected it will hasten the onset of more serious problems such as instability, water penetration and even disintegration. If caught in time, all that may be required to fix this and prevent further deterioration is a spot of localised repointing.
Before starting work on chimneys, there are a number of important points to consider:
Firstly, temporarily seal up fireplaces to prevent clouds of soot and debris rattling down the flues, creating mess inside.
Secondly, a lot of stacks are perched on party walls with the other half belonging to the neighbour. So, it’s worth persuading the co-owner(s) to jointly contribute to the works. Sorting the whole thing in one go makes sense both structurally and aesthetically — not to mention economically. Where it’s just your side of the stack that’s being worked on.
Chimneys are sometimes used to support TV aerials, and these may need to be taken down and later reinstalled. However, the art of optimising TV reception is one that’s probably best left to aerial specialists, although we will try our best to avoid calling in these specialists.
It’s also not unknown for some tiles or slates to get broken during the repair process. Ridge roofing will have a team on standby on the day that the scaffolding is to be removed, to carry out any repairs before the scaffolding is completely dismantled.
Defective flashings should be replaced with new lead (this should be of a minimum Code 4 thickness). It’s false economy to use cheaper, short-life materials, Ridge roofing have trained specialists in the lead field.
To fit a new lead flashing, we will cut a groove in the chimney (usually into a mortar joint) approximately 150mm above the level of the roof; on a slope this is normally in a stepped pattern. we will turn the lead flashing at least 25mm into the groove and fix it in place with lead wedges and then seal it with new mortar.
It’s worth noting that, traditionally, at the sides of a stack, slates and plain tiles have strips of L-shaped lead ‘soakers’ inserted underneath before being covered with the flashing. Soakers are not necessary with interlocking tiles.
In some instances, the existing flashing may simply have come loose or is inadequately sealed to the brickwork, in which case it may just need to be re-fixed and wedged into existing joints and pointed up with fresh mortar. Where damp is due to porous stack walls that lack a DPC, the problem can sometimes be solved by repointing eroded mortar joints. If all else fails, try fitting new lead flashings that extend higher up and deeper into the brickwork.
Lead Work
Our Lead DPC Chimney Trays are made from code 5 sheet lead to- BS EN 12588 Designed to prevent water penetration into the building through the chimney stack. They are fitted during the construction of the chimney.