Neilos

Another interesting point the SE told me about was to notice where the cracks have formed, they (mostly) formed along a path where the original builders used small cuts to fill gaps, he said that if the original builders had planned it a bit better then they would not have had to use small cuts and could have made it wholly from full bricks which would have provided a better structure, so there is a lesson to be learned here - well I'm learning a lot anyway!

Structural Engineer came out a few days ago. He thinks that a temp "A" frame between the stacks will hold it while helical bars are added and the whole thing repointed. He says that it doesn't look to be water damage and thinks that it's just time and gravity that has caused it to break away (the building is almost 150 years old - 1876). He also said that it is not in imminent danger of falling as it is being held by the rest of the brick work, the chimney stacks have not been removed in the rooms below and the rough brickwork in the middle is actually providing support. So, it looks to be best case scenario - just need to book a builder now, they're all booked up :/

I believe that the stacks continue down through the house as there are still large protruding parts of the wall where the stack would be (i.e. the rooms have not been made larger), they're covered with plaster (no gaps for fireplaces) but I assume that the brick is still there underneath. Also I don't think that the crack continues down into the vertical part of the stack, it looks to me as though the underside of the chimney has been pulled away by gravity (probably due to weathering of the lime mortar) and is peeling away from the top. Do you think that the central part (under the stack) is added later to support the chimney then? I assumed that this was part of the supporting wall. It might be worth noting that this is a semi detached house and the neighbour has an identical chimney setup on the other side, so the central blob of rustic brickwork actually sits underneath 4 chimney stacks. I have no idea what this looks like from the other side. I'm not going to fix it myself. This would be good as it would cause the least disruption but I guess we need to get a structural engineer out to look at it first hand, fingers crossed we don't need to undertake major work to get it fixed. I'll take a look at the weather proofing on the chimney, it might need to be improved.

The house has two internal chimneys that go vertical to the loft, where they are both corbeled and meet at the top to leave the house in a single chimney location on the roof (like an upside down Y). One of the corbeled chimneys (seen below) has the underside breaking away, some of the bricks near the top are loose to the touch. The chimney is fixed to the supporting wall on the far side (the bricks join to the wall, i.e. no gap), there doesn't appear to be cracking on the wall side, I think this is the only reason it hasn't fallen down already. I need advice on regarding: How safe this is? (do we need to move out?) Who do we need to contact to look at this to get it fixed? What is the range of pricing for the cost of fixing this? What would be involved with fixing this? Many thanks in advance.