It was not going to happen!

 Sept 21st

The hard work began, well for Ian, not for me, although that was to come later. Ian's man flu was manageable, his cough was the worst, and I did wonder if maybe he had Covid. Without a test, there was no way of telling. Anyway, he was determined to start on the chimney and collar today, the weather was still good, so starting outside he tried digging out the cement. That proved a lot harder than he imagined. His hope was to knock the cement out, then come in and dig out the heat-resistant silicon around the bottom of the flue pipe, and then remove the pipe completely.

 

That was the attempt to stop dust from dropping when hammering from above.

 

But that cement was not for removing! He was very reluctant to mention a suggestion to me, it would involve loads of dust, but he plucked up the courage and with some reluctance, I agreed but only if we could shield the main part of the saloon from the debris. It involved working with the hammer and a screwdriver to act as a chisel and trying to remove the cement from inside.

A trial run before the main event.

Well, that didn't work! The sticky tape keeping the sheet up kept unsticking, I hadn't the heart to tell him to stop so, with a sigh, knew that my work would start once he finished. Eventually, after a very long time of putting up with banging and the odd swear word, he broke through the cement and daylight streamed in.

It was only then that he discovered just how bad the top of the flue was. It had more holes in it than a sieve. No wonder we had that fertan running down the wall and why the CO alarm kept going off. Taking the sheet down I was shocked at the amount of dirt, cement and dust that covered everything in that area.

And Ian showed just how bad that top section of the flue was

After what I call a 'man tidy' he had a go at removing the silicon around where the flue met the stove. He failed!!! Oh, the silicon came out okay, but more cement around the flue meant he just couldn't get the flue pipe to turn. He even hit it with a screwdriver in the joint and the lump hammer! So we are back to square one. No using the stove at all, and we heard on the weather this morning that a cold front from the North will be with us at the end of the week. Oh, joy of joys....we have diesel heating thank goodness, but even though Ian is very willing to turn it on if I need it, I am reluctant to keep it on all day.

The predicted rain arrived during late afternoon, and thunder rolled around for a good hour. Sunday and Monday is for more rain, Tuesday dry, so we may make a break for Shardlow. I doubt if we will get much further as CRT will not update about the lack of water on the Erewash situation until Friday 27th and with so much rain, I expect the River Trent will be in flood too.