Repair to leaking chimney stack
The owner of this 1980's house gave us a call to investigate water leaking into their attic around the chimney breast. They had a number of tradesmen in to carry out a repair, but the leak remained in addition to a serious amount of builders mastic.
In fairness, the initial inspection showed only a small surface crack on the chimney stack but appearances can often hide a serious fault.
Removing the plaster and capping revealed a serious fault; the entire stack was cracked.
It soon became evident that there was more than a leak at play here. The entire stack was split and the integrity of the chimney was compromised. The damage was most likely caused by a serious chimney fire sometime in the past that was not detected or investigated afterwards. There were two flues running inside the stack and these were also cracked as shown.
We removed the stack right down to a stage where the structure was solid and removed about two tons of filling in the process before rebuilding, capping, and flashing the stack.
The original pebble dash finish was re-applied to the chimney stack and the inside was left ready for decoration.