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{ 09 10 2012 }

Bang, bang, bang……

……Crash, thud, tinkle. Yes, I’ve got builders in again! Rob is still here painting the porch and the kitchen window. It’s been a slower job than he’d hoped because the weather has been so poor that he hasn’t been able to do as much of the exterior paintwork as he had planned. It’s dry today, so he’s currently painting the porch door. But in addition to him, I’ve also got two builders on the roof repairing and repointing the chimney. And that is noisy! There is a huge amount of banging, thumping and crashing and occasionally they seem to drop something (possibly a loose chunk of old mortar) down the chimney which is quite disconcerting. They say that the chimney is in a pretty poor state of repair – it’s very exposed to the elements up there, the mortar is crumbling, there is a lot of penetrating damp, and some of the bricks are perished. I didn’t realise that bricks could perish, but apparently so. I don’t recall us ever doing anything about the chimney since we moved in, so I suppose it’s only reasonable to expect it to need some attention. I’ll be glad to have it done and watertight before the winter sets in. But I could do without the percussive sound effects – it’s making my head ring!

Posted by icyjumbo on Tuesday, October 9, 2012, at 4:20 pm. Filed under house. Follow any responses to this post with its comments RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

{ 5 } Comments

  1. pauld | 10 October 2012 at 5:02 am | Permalink

    “seem to drop something (possibly a loose chunk of old mortar) down the chimney which is quite disconcerting. They say that the chimney is in a pretty poor state of repair”

    sounds like they might be doing their bit to help it along the way, can just see builders up on roof throwing bits down every so often to re-enforce your view that it needs doing. Sort of managing a customers expectations prior to a new contract placement 🙂

  2. Gillian | 10 October 2012 at 8:15 pm | Permalink

    Oh you cynics the pair of you!

  3. Q&J | 10 October 2012 at 4:37 pm | Permalink

    Do bricks perish? What about the Roman ones (I mean those “newly discovered”, as opposed to “new”!). They seem to have lasted quite a time. And the fort at Richborough, seems to be standing quite well, though it does look a bit knocked about!!
    Q

  4. Peter | 13 October 2012 at 2:06 pm | Permalink

    Not sure I’ve ever heard the expression ‘ perishing bricks’.
    I have heard the expression ‘perishing builders’ quite a number of times!
    P.

  5. David A | 14 October 2012 at 11:34 am | Permalink

    Bricks can crack and crumble over time – sometimes the entire face of the brick can fall off (this happened to one or two bricks when our house was repointed, and I was watching the brickie at the time, so it wasn’t a matter of him being careless). I guess once a bit of water gets in, frost will then expand the crack…