Leah and Joe: Home DIY Projects & Crafts

It was not an easy decision, but we’re so glad we kept our wood-burning fireplace. Extending the chimney was quite an ordeal, but it’s sure keeping us toasty!

Extending our Brick Chimney

We had the option of keeping our wood burning fireplace, or swapping it out for a gas one. We spend so many nights in front of the fire, we really felt like we’d regret losing it in the long term.

With a gas insert, we could frame up the old stack with siding material (at a fraction of the cost). If we were to keep the wood burner, we’d need to add brick. The previous owners had a brand new, top-of-the-line Quadra-Fire insert that we love. We could probably have sold it, but likely not for full price. We figure keeping the wood burner will help offset our heating bill over the years. And we have plenty of firewood from the fallen trees to last us at least 10 years.

Here is the “before” of our chimney height. The city code requires chimneys reach above your roofline for fire safety purposes. Extend the roof = extend the chimney.

Work Schedule

The chimney needed to get at least beyond the start of the new roof before the shingles went on, so the brick masons had to start the process while the framers were still working. It was important to get the roof on as soon as possible with the rainy fall we were having. I was most worried about this part — lining up the work schedules perfectly. Normally a general contractor is responsible for that, but in this case it’s us! This part actually worked out really smoothly. Communication is key.

We asked the framers what they thought, and it would be no problem. The brick masons could set up their scaffolding and work on the lower roof. We had the framers leave a little space for the chimney “saddle” to be built, then they’d need to finish framing around that after the chimney was up.

The saddle, or cricket, sheds water and connects the chimney to the roof. More info here. You can kind of see it here in our blueprints.

Choosing Brick

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We didn’t want to redo all the brick on our house, just the chimney. So we planned to match it to what’s on our house already.

We currently have a style of Chicago brick with white patches.

I think it’s similar to this Cambridge 6060 brick, but with more pink in it.

So I took a little stroll through the brick yard and asked to take some samples home.

The Brick Options

All pricing being equal, we chose four styles to try on for size. (Ignore the numbers written on the brick below). Click photo galleries to enlarge.

Option 1 — Old Chicago Common

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Option 2 — Old Delaware

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Option 3 — Pioneer Blend

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Option 3 — Old Charleston

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I’ll let you guess which one we chose…

Out with the old

In with the new.

We went with the Pioneer Blend since we liked the smooth, clean look. And we fancy ourselves pioneers. 😉 It was different from our curent brick, but as a “blend” it has lots of different colors and shades, so it still matches well. And it looks much more modern than the 80’s style brick we have below.

The framers continued working while the brick masons worked upward.

It’s crazy how they start the chimney stack. They run the flue liners and fresh air intakes inside the brick.

View from the bottom

View up to the top

We had shingles put on somewhere in the middle of the process. The bricks took 2-3 weeks. The roof took 2-3 hours! We don’t even have any pictures — it happened so fast.

Joe playing around up on the scaffolding…

The framers finished up the upper saddle, but we had to put in this lower one.

Thanks Steve! Then the roofers came back to finish shingles and a rain guard around the chimney. Meanwhile, the framers are still plugging away. So many moving parts.

It turned out great. Not without a few bumps in the road, but all’s well that ends well I think.

It’s nearly impossible to keep things in chronological order, as you can see. Things are happening concurrently and every job has a different timeline. Our house basically has an open door policy in this stage of the game. But it’s exciting and progress happened so fast.

Next, I can put the focus back on windows and show you around the inside.

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