Take It All Down..

As my mentor, Mike Holmes , often says when confronted with the aftermath of a shady contractor.

I first cut a small entry hole in the kitchen/living room/fireplace wall. I was hoping that would be enough to be able to install the new Selkirk chimney.

Alas, once that was open it became readily apparent that more deconstruction was going to be necessary. The through ceiling fittings were installed first and then the studding was installed over them with a bunch of drywall and loose aluminum panels - presumably to act as a fire break. So I couldn't get the old stuff out. The old chimney wasn't framed in either - it was basically just hanging off of some 1/2 " plywood. Aluminum panels which were stapled onto gypsum board had fallen off. Don't know how good aluminum sheeting is as a fire break anyway. The way it was studded inside there wasn't the required clearances to the chimney. Some restructuring required.

So we decided to just get rid of the whole thing. Remove all the tacky brick, replacing the fireplace insert with a standalone unit. New these things go for $2800.oo, which would kinda put the December financing well out of budget. Fortunatly I have a "spare" one sitting up at Grandmas which will fill the bill nicely. And the price is right. Removing the structure should open up the space between the kitchen and living room.

I will have to contend with the furnace chimney coming through the floor but it's doable. Probably by boxing it in which is what the building code demands. And the overhead double log beams are supported by a screw jack burried in the wall. One of the summer inhabitants of Endako, an Arizona snowbird, mentioned that he had lent a jack to the previous owner and it wasn't returned and suspected it was behind a wall. Well I can replace it with a burl which would look a lot nicer. And return the jack. About 20 years later, but a tool return is a tool return.

I also have an idea about installing a wood butler/elevator to bring firewood from the basement.

I will have to rewire the switches to the living room, kitchen and veranda lights. They were all installed in the fireplace surround. Ah well, I used to be an electrician in a former life. And the wiring wasn't done to code, jambed between flooring planks in places and a run of cabling wasn't stapled inside the encloseure and was touching the fireplace metal. Not Good. Now that the logs are exposed they will need to be ground down and refinished. Lots of vitamin Pine in the air..

I don't know how long this little project is going to take. But probably longer than I would estimate. O.K. - you forced me, I'd say a week. Check back to see.

On the garage/shop front, we picked up another 15 rolls of 24 inch R40 insullation ( about 12 " thick) in order to finish the ceiling insulation which will let me heat up the shop. That will be nice. And will make installing the vapour barrier and wall sheeting nicer. But it gets second priority now that the fireplace rebuild is in full swing.

Oh and I have to get the skidsteer plow enabled. Looks like snow out there.

Ah well did I mention I have power tools.