Removing chimney made of logs

[MattR]

My wife and I bought a log cabin last fall and soon realized the chimney needs to be removed. The cabin is made of milled logs and was built in 93. The chimney is also made of similar logs. The problem is that the chimney is supported by the deck. Yes, that's stupid and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. The weight of the chimney is pulling on the wall and causing problems with the door and the deck.

Anyway, my question is how hard is it to just take the chimney off? I want someone else to patch things up but was wondering if I can saw off chunks of the chimney and save myself $5k in demo fees. Nobody will give us a quote until the chimney is removed and they can see what's there.

As best as I can describe how it's installed: The chimney is C shaped with interlocking logs on the outside of the chimney away from the cabin wall. I'm not sure how it's attached to the cabin wall as, from the inside of the cabin, there is just a regular cabin wall except for where the fireplace is. I'd add a picture if it looked like I could upload one. It's either screwed or nailed to the wall. The chimney is about 6 feet wide and it's maybe 2.5 feet deep on the outside. There's a fireplace at the bottom of the chimney that is covered up and a wood stove in front of it. We want to replace the wood stove, fill in the hole, make the outside look decent and patch the roof where it was cut out on the outside of the cabin.


Thanks.

[loghousenut]

Matt, that's definitely a summertime can of worms you are about to open. I've never done anything with milled logs and I'm sure yours is built differently than most every other one. How about a few photos.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

[mudflap]

sounds terrible and unsafe -

but yeah, photos would help - you can upload them a few ways - one is: directly from the Tapatalk app. Another is by uploading the photo to somewhere else like Imgur or Postimages.org , then copying the URL and pasting it here in IMG quotes - like this:

https://imgur.com/ei6tlOF.png

[MattR]

First of all, we got a second quote that was much more reasonable so we'll probably go with that.

But, let's see if this works:

https://i.postimg.cc/SKkZ0PDx/20220906-142834.jpg

This picture is from under the deck. The chimney goes up about 12'

I hope that helps.

[mudflap]

yup. I would say foundational support if it's a rock chimney. If it's just chimney pipe, you still need to support it: https://inspectapedia.com/chimneys/Chimney_Bracing_Metal.php

that page also has photos of rock/brick chimneys.

Don't mess around with chimney code- follow it exactly. I don't know which is worse - electrical or chimney fires, but they'll both burn your house down.

Good luck with it!

[allen84]

My best guess is, if it's something you think you might be able to tackle yourself, you probably can. You should try to save as many logs as you can, you'll need some to fill the void and you may find other sections of house that need replaced later.