Janice, a long-time business contact, called Black Goose Chimney in October of 2016 asking for help. Her daughter-in-law’s brother Trevor had broken his neck in a swimming accident during his high school graduation weekend; he was paralyzed and in a wheel chair. She was putting together an Extreme Home Makeover and asked if we could help with the fireplace. A crew was sent for a Level II inspection and they noted numerous areas of concern. The firebox needed repointing, the damper frame was broken, the smoke chamber was not parged, the exterior brick needed repointing, the crown was cracked, and the rusty cap was missing the rain bonnet. The Extreme Home Makeover was scheduled for the middle of December. She was told that we would be glad to help, but could not do it in December, so the work was scheduled for April 3, 2017.
Calls were made to our vendor members, the word was put out to our local members, and the support poured in. Thanks to Copperfield, Estoban (Chim Scan), Lindemann, New England Chimney Supply, ICP (Vacu-Stack), Regional Chimney Supply, Saver Systems, Southeast HPBA, and Weathertite.
Jim Bostaph with Black Goose Chimney was supervising on site from 8:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. Sergey and Ian Gardner with Black Goose (Newport News), Steve Skloff and Larry Banks from Chimney Doctors (Virginia Beach), Ike Rowland from County Chimney (Yorktown), and Marko Jocic from Soko Corp. (Smithfield) all gave some hours to this worthy cause.
Repairs included repointing the firebox, parging the smoke chamber, pressure washing the chimney, repointing the exterior bricks, parging the crown, and installing a top-sealing damper cap. Everything but the crown was done by 5:00. There was a rain storm approaching so the chimney had to be covered. Nobody had a tarp in their van, but Marko said: “Hey, I have my motorcycle cover and it’s the right size.” The temporary cover worked and Sergey and Ian returned the next day to finish the crown.
An English professor once said: “When someone asks how you are doing, don’t say ‘I’m doing good’ unless you’re helping Jimmy Carter build houses for Habitat For Humanity or helping Mother Teresa minister to the needy; you are doing WELL.” Well, that day we were all doing GOOD!
During the makeover
Before
Sergey parging the smoke chamber
Marko helping mix the mud
Ike pressure washing
Steve and Marko adjusting the top sealing damper cable
The recent seminar with Chris Prior was a great success! We had students from 6 states attend, including Pennsylvania, Colorado, Alabama, Virginia, Maryland, and New Jersey. Maying thanks to National Chimney for the use of their warehouse space and parking lot as well as for the generous auction donation.
