Stone falling into chimney near boundary - who is responsible and who is at danger?

joe90mitch

Hi all,

Just had our ridge tiles re-mortared on our stone victorian terrace and, unfortunately, the roofer noticed that on the chimney at the back 2 stones seem to somehow be falling into the chimney stack - he said it looked like a flue was all that was stopping it falling further. 

It's a shared stack between us and our neighbour. You can see the boundary of the 2 roofs quite clearly at the bottom left of the photo where there's a line between the slates. The right hand side is our roof, the left hand side the neighbours. Looking at this line, it makes it look like the 2 stones are on the neighbour's side. At the same time, the "split" of the chimney stack seems to be further to the left in the photo, making it look like the 2 stones are directly above the boundary.

I'm eager for us and/or the neighbour to get this resolved, though there are difficulties as she's extremely unwell with alcoholism and so it's quite difficult to discuss things. The scaffolding at the back is still up and the roofer has given us time to decide if we'd like to crack on (been quoted £550 to rebuild that 1 side and repoint our side, I guess if it's possible to get it done whilst scaffolding is still up then it makes sense). Now we are about to raise it with our neighbour, but I want to understand

• Does that look like it sits above just the neighbour's property, or ours also
• Are we both at risk if it fell, or just her
• Does it look like something that should be split cost, or 1 person

I'm not trying to just fleece my neighbour - in all likelihood I can see us stumping up the full cost (recently we replaced completely rotten wooden gutters and asked if she wanted to do so also as they offered a small discount if we both went for it -she said she just couldn't handle anything like that currently). But I'd definitely like to understand the situation better.

Thanks
Joe

Section62

joe90mitch said:

Just had our ridge tiles re-mortared on our stone victorian terrace and, unfortunately, the roofer noticed that on the chimney at the back 2 stones seem to somehow be falling into the chimney stack - he said it looked like a flue was all that was stopping it falling further. 

From that picture there's no obvious reason why the neighbour's half needs a full rebuild - a competent roofer/bricklayer should be able to pull the two stones out, clean them up and then reset them.  With everything needed for access in place already the cost ought to be two figures, not three.

Is it in worse condition on the sides we can't see?

joe90mitch

Interesting... Puts us between a rock and a hard place I guess - if I go to another roofer would I be able to ask this current roofer to leave the scaffolding up and the other roofer use it, or does it not work like that? Obviously if the scaffolding comes down, the cost of new scaffolding could be nearly as much as the £550 quoted.

He wasn't saying a full rebuild BTW. I'm probably not explaining well - they just meant reconstructing that face with the problem stones. He said it's in OK condition on the other faces, but said a repointing would be worthwhile.

He said he would like to reach in and grab them, but they're awkwardly placed and so is concerned by trying to reach in and grab them he could knock them further. Does that sound wrong to you though?

In case it helps, yellow circle shows the boundary of the roofs, blue arrows neighbour's side, red arrows my side. Definitely intrigued if this is a joint issue, or looks to be more 1 house than another.

tonyh66

TBH if your neighbour has problems, I would just pay for it then its done. Having said that £550 is rather steep for the work required, but the scaffolding is there. Could another roofer access the chimney without scaffolding?

stuart45

The stones are probably resting against the masonry dividing wall that separates the 2 flues ( known as the Mid Feathers).
You could say that this is affecting both flues. 
I agree with Section62 that this seems a lot of money, but as you say to get someone else in could cost more. 
Are both of the flues lined? If so a brick falling in would be less of a problem. If they are not lined a brick can bring a lot of soot down to an open fire if it makes it down to the bottom.

Section62

joe90mitch said:

He wasn't saying a full rebuild BTW. I'm probably not explaining well - they just meant reconstructing that face with the problem stones. He said it's in OK condition on the other faces, but said a repointing would be worthwhile.

He said he would like to reach in and grab them, but they're awkwardly placed and so is concerned by trying to reach in and grab them he could knock them further. Does that sound wrong to you though?

There's not much on just that one face to be reconstructed...

The risk of knocking the stones in is a real one, but as Stuart45 says, the chances are that a dividing wall limits that risk.  In any event, there is always a risk of dropping stones when dismantling and rebuilding and a good tradesperson will explain that to the client before starting work (and/or take precautions such as sheeting over the fireplace).

There's a risk here that if you ask the roofer to do the more expensive option (and presumably the intent is for you to pay and then get the money back from the neighbour) then the neighbour may subsequently refuse to pay and if you needed to go to use legal means to claim the money back I'm not sure you could justify a cost of £550 for what appears to be a relatively minor defect.

joe90mitch

Thanks for all the replied everyone! Just going to reply on a few points

tonyh66 said:

£550 is rather steep for the work required, but the scaffolding is there. Could another roofer access the chimney without scaffolding?

When we went out for quotes on the ridge tiles (and gutters), I would say 4 out of 5 wanted scaffolding up. It's a high roof with a steep angle, so don't know if I'd even feel comfortable having roofers up there without scaffold - there's also a 1 story extension on that side, so you can't easily get a ladder to the correct point.

stuart45 said:

Are both of the flues lined? If so a brick falling in would be less of a problem. If they are not lined a brick can bring a lot of soot down to an open fire if it makes it down to the bottom.

How would I know if it's lined? Our chimney isn't being used - it's boarded over in the first floor and on the ground floor it's now got our cooker situated where the fire would have been (and the extractor leads out of the side of the house). Does that mean it's unlikely to be lined? No idea re neighbour. I guess if a stone fell on our side it could cause a lot of damage to the extractor fan and cooker?

Section62 said:

There's a risk here that if you ask the roofer to do the more expensive option (and presumably the intent is for you to pay and then get the money back from the neighbour) then the neighbour may subsequently refuse to pay and if you needed to go to use legal means to claim the money back I'm not sure you could justify a cost of £550 for what appears to be a relatively minor defect.

TBH I think I've explained things badly. I'm not trying to frame this as "how do we get £x from neighbour" - I mainly wanted to understand if it's completed 1 property's issue or joint (sounds joint from all the replies). I think me and my partner agree with @tonyh66 that it may just be easier to foot the cost ourselves, but I would shoot off a text to her with the picture, explaining the issue and asking if we was willing to split the cost (probably wouldn't hear back or it would be fairly incoherent sadly, she is not in a good way unfortunately).

Makes me wonder how long it's been like that... Whether it's better to try to contact some roofers for separate quotes ASAP and see what they think. Could try delaying the current ones by just saying because it's with the neighbour it's got complicated and might take a bit more time to come to an agreement. Might also ask for a complete breakdown of the quote from the current roofer (e.g. how many people, how many days, what exactly will be done) and see if I can bring down the price at all.

Just so I understand, what do you all think the remedial work should be? I know no job is always the same as another and the roofer has seen it up close, but are you all saying really it should be "theoretically" as simple as pulling the 2 stones out and putting them back in?

Thanks a lot everyone!

stuart45

Putting the 2 stones back would be a good start. Unless you are going to rebuild the stack it might not be worth spending too much on it.

Section62

joe90mitch said:

Section62 said:

There's a risk here that if you ask the roofer to do the more expensive option (and presumably the intent is for you to pay and then get the money back from the neighbour) then the neighbour may subsequently refuse to pay and if you needed to go to use legal means to claim the money back I'm not sure you could justify a cost of £550 for what appears to be a relatively minor defect.

TBH I think I've explained things badly. I'm not trying to frame this as "how do we get £x from neighbour" - I mainly wanted to understand if it's completed 1 property's issue or joint (sounds joint from all the replies). I think me and my partner agree with @tonyh66 that it may just be easier to foot the cost ourselves, but I would shoot off a text to her with the picture, explaining the issue and asking if we was willing to split the cost (probably wouldn't hear back or it would be fairly incoherent sadly, she is not in a good way unfortunately).

Don't worry, that was understood.  My point was if the neighbour got funny about paying then you may have quite some difficulty recovering the full amount (even without the health issues).  Hence you'd want to minimise the amount you are risking.

My take on the situation (without seeing your deeds) is that responsibility for that half of the chimney is likely to be with the neighbour, and in principle you shouldn't do work on it without their consent.  However, in the circumstances I don't think it is likely a court would find fault with you if you asked a competent person to repair the two stones for safety reasons - knowing that if they were dislodged they could cause significant damage internally to the building, of if they fell outwards there is even a risk of someone below suffering a fatal injury.

I think another condiseration should be the cause of the damage.  If I just saw the pictures and didn't have the background info I would probably speculate that the damage was relatively recent, and possibly caused by a heavy object falling/rolling down the roof and up against the chimney.  Failing joints could certainly allow the stones to move, but some external force would usually be needed to make them move. My follow up question would then be "Has anyone been working on the roof recently?"

BTW, whoever installed/repaired the neighbour's vent pipe has done a bit of a poor job.  It needs a "weathering collar" rather than the liberal application of sealant it got.

DRP

Can you just ask your current builder to reset those 2 bricks - not to bother with the rest of the work? Cost should be far less?

TELLIT01

Lined or not, my bigger concern would be water ingress from rain of snow if the problem isn't addressed quickly.  If the scaffolding is still in place my inclination would be to get the work done by the people who arranged the scaffolding.  Once they leave they will be likely to contact the scaffolding company who could then remove it at any time.