The first chimney is down. We have another one, but that is in better shape and has less water damage. This cannot be said for the parapet. The coping tiles are patched together and don’t really keep the water out of the masonry. The subsequent saturation of the brick work led to freeze-thaw damage and a lot of loose bricks, which led to even more water getting into the wall and more freeze-thaw damage.
Once I took the coping tiles off, I found that the first layers of brick work had disintegrated in many parts.
I don’t know what kept stuff from falling down. May be it was the weeds growing in the cracks or the countless bird nests holding things sort of together?
We have to break the vicious cycle of water entry, saturated masonry and freeze-thaw damage – and we have to break it right now – before winter hits.
First step: Dissemble all loose masonry from the parapet in preparation for rebuilding.
Once done, I noticed that from the street side our building looks like it got hit by a bomb.
Tags: deconstruction, masonry
You two are courageous people! I’m always afraid to look too closely at problems, but you don’t seem to have any of that fear, but charge right ahead. I’m guessing from the number of leaves still on the trees in these pictures that by now there is a happy resolution/repair in time for winter…