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

joe90mitch

Section62 said:

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.

Thanks for the detailed reply - really useful! We'll definitely run it by the neighbour either way - I'm sure she'll at least say she's happy for us to sort it. In terms of cause of damage - we've only lived here a year and a half. The only work we've had done is the repointing of the ridge tiles... I suppose the roofer could have caused the damage themselves, but I would be somewhat surprised. Not really sure what was done before then - could easily have been when that vent pipe went in I suppose as I know next door were doing fairly substantial renovations just before we moved in. Her roof all round is an absolute bodge job - strips of aluminium stuff covering missing tiles, so many slipped tiles... It's a bit of a mess all round sadly.

DRP said:

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?

Yeah I think this'll be my natural next step to try to bring price down

TELLIT01 said:

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.

Agreed! We are definitely on board with getting it sorted sooner rather than later

joe90mitch

So I called a few local roofers and got through to one who I sent the photo to and talked it through with. He did say there could be some other factors that you can't tell from the photo, but he said he's not sure why you'd need to reconstruct that face and, like you're all saying, fixing the loose stones should be sufficient.

Said he's busy next week, but he's more than happy to pop round tomorrow, use the scaffold to get up and take a look and then call me with a confirmed quote, but he said over the phone probably around £140 if it's just 2 stones need doing. Said if I'm happy with the price he'll happily squeeze me in and do it tomorrow before the scaffolding goes down.

Sounds a lot better. Glad I asked here and was nudged by you all to have a little rethink

stuart45

Good you got it sorted I wouldn't mind one job every day like that for £140.

joe90mitch

stuart45 said:

Good you got it sorted I wouldn't mind one job every day like that for £140.

Haha yeah probably has worked out well for him. Better for us as we don't have to pay for scaffolding again, so seems OK all around 👌 

twopenny

You could explain to your neighbour that the vent needs flashing and would she like to get that done while the scaffold is up?

It shouldn't cost much and may save them further heartache.

And it's a touch of kindness that might stand you in good stead.

Woolsery

twopenny said:

You could explain to your neighbour that the vent needs flashing and would she like to get that done while the scaffold is up?

It shouldn't cost much and may save them further heartache.

And it's a touch of kindness that might stand you in good stead.

You and I might be able to judge that from a photo, but many people may not especially if they trust the tradesperson they employed. Also, it will be seen as bad news and messengers are often shot for that! 

bpj

The original £550 quote also included repointing half the chimney. If it needs doing now is the time - how much does that account for?

joe90mitch

Blergh, so the guy came out Saturday and said he wasn't happy with how the scaffold was set up and so couldn't do it there and then (maybe in fairness to the original firm, they had set it up to both replace the gutters and give access to the roof). He also said there were some damaged tiles and due to both these things "wouldn't go back to the original guys if I were you". But I feel I end up with half the tradespeople I get around for quotes criticising other's work, so never know how much to take it seriously...

We also showed it to my partner's grandad, who is a retired carpenter/general builder who did a lot of roof work who agreed it looked like just fixing those 2 stones should be sufficient.

twopenny said:

You could explain to your neighbour that the vent needs flashing and would she like to get that done while the scaffold is up?

It shouldn't cost much and may save them further heartache.

And it's a touch of kindness that might stand you in good stead.

It's a nice thought, we have a good relationship with her anyway and have had to help her through some pretty dark occasions relating to her illness, so I think she appreciates us already, just in this case I'm not sure how much it would help. When we asked for her permission to get the chimney fixed and said we'd happily just cover the costs if it was £150 she was thankful but said she just can't contribute anything currently.

bpj said:

The original £550 quote also included repointing half the chimney. If it needs doing now is the time - how much does that account for?

Yeah, I think our plan now will be to go back to the original guys asking what the split is between the chimney repair and repointing and also saying our preference would be to just re-fix those 2 stones in place.

Section62

joe90mitch said:

Blergh, so the guy came out Saturday and said he wasn't happy with how the scaffold was set up and so couldn't do it there and then (maybe in fairness to the original firm, they had set it up to both replace the gutters and give access to the roof).

Any chance of a picture of the scaffolding... curious as to how unsafe/unsuitable it is if a builder is unwilling to use it.  If it is really bad you may want to rethink having the original bloke back.

stuart45

The reason that he's included the pointing in the quote is that it sounds as if you are getting a lot more for your money. 
In practice you could take out the joints on your side and repoint them in an hour. 
As a customer just replacing 2 stones for over £500 seems a lot, but throw.in a repoint and it probably seems better.
Another thing to hear in mind is that repointing is really the bricklayers job, although roofers will often have a go themselves whilst up there.