Nightmare chimney job-advice

[Arnold9801]

About 15 years ago we had a gas fire fitted resulting in them fitting a 4inch flexible flue down the chimney. We recently bought a log burner as we want to get rid of the gas fire. We have never been happy with it which is the reason for changing.
Ten years ago we had a new roof fitted on our Cornish Cottage so we decided that this was the best time to rebuild the original and dreadful chimney as the brickie could use the scaffolding that was there for the roofers.
To cut a long story short, the brickie cemented the liner all the way down through the clay pipe and then used vermiculite/cement from the clay pipe down through the lead skirt and to the base of the chimney which is level with the top of the roof, if that makes sense? From there down is the original chimney.
I eventually got the flue liner out, but now need to enlarge the hole to house the new 6 inch flue for the new fire.
To do this I was hoping I could hire a sds max 7inch cutter to go through the vermiculite/cement as this would make inserting the new liner much easier than a tight 6inch hole. Unfortunately 6 inch is the biggest cutter I can get.

Does anyone have any advice on how best to excavate the vermiculite/cement baring in mind I have to drill down approx 1Mt from the top of the chimney?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[MikeG.]

Take the chimney down as far as you need to and rebuild it. It'll be quicker and cheaper.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Isn't cement/vermiculite quite soft ? Might be soft enough to scrape away with a makeshift tool ?

 

[Arnold9801]

I have thought I may have to take it down An day get it rebuilt. If we knew it was going to be like this we wouldn’t have started! However that’s no longer an option.

The vermiculite/cement mix is like hard clay. I can get extensions to bore deeper but I will still need to expand the hole which is the pain.

 

[MikeG.]

Isn't cement/vermiculite quite soft ? Might be soft enough to scrape away with a makeshift tool ?

Vermiculite is soft. But how hard the concrete/ vermiculite mix is depends on how strong the concrete is, and builder's generally err on the side of being too strong rather than too weak.

 

[RogerS]

Just make sure you have enough bags :lol:

 

[Arnold9801]

This was mine this morning but on a smaller scale! Don’t think I will be able to put any of it back if I manage to get the 6inch liner in? The dread is trying to expand the drilled 6inch hole if I manage to drill it as I will need to get it up to 7 inches. Doesn’t sound a lot but working quite high up on a narrow footplate i made for the roof ladder is not the most pleasant job.

 

[sammy.se]

Just make sure you have enough bags :lol:

Why are you storing wheat in your fireplace?


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[Woody2Shoes]

I did this once - dismantling the chimney (down to celing level in my case) was helpful, as was gaffer-taping an angle grinder to a stick and poking it down the hole, plus taking two or three bricks out of the wall to open up the flue lower down esp. near a bend. A filthy and thoroughly unpleasant job, but worth it in the end! Cheers, W2S