The brick layer visits

So this is what we have been doing for the last few weeks: We have been helping the brick layer built us a chimney, oven and stove.
First the brick layer came to visit the place and plan the job. He also gave us a long shopping list for all the stuff we needed to get for the job. We had thought first of using used bricks but in the end we decided to use new ones because of the better quality. In this cold of a climate it is crucial to have an oven that heats the house well (if like in our case it is the only heat source in the house) and also for us a good stove is crucial because it is the only way we can cook. This is why we decided to use new materials and to use a professional to do the work.

So a truck came and brought us 2530 red bricks and 3000kg of mortar. And some fire bricks and other materials. Not cheap!

The chimney is built straight by hanging a plumb bob which is a string line with a weight on it from top and then nailing a board where the line hangs. The brick layer built the chimney along this board (seen in the picture on the right against the chimney)

It was an unusual space for the brick layer to built where the chimney goes out of the roof. There needed to stay minimum 10cm of space all around the chimney for fire safety reasons. This will be later stuffed with rock wool.

When the brick layer got higher doing the chimney the work for us was very heavy. There was no time to spare from making more mortar, bringing it and bricks up onto the roof and also building the scaffolding for the brick layer.

Working on the last 2 meters of the 8.4 meter chimney. The bricks with no holes in them were all built in the house and outside above the frost line the bricks with holes in them are used because they last longer (don't split from frost as easily). The bricks are made in Finland, there still is two brick factories here.

There it is. Building the chimney took about one week.