Chimney capping confusion

[Emotionalrollercoaster]

Chimney issues - I'm confused!

My gas fire was decommissioned so looking at getting chimney previously used to ventilate it capped, and previous weird looking cowl to sealed chimney breast at the back replaced with terracotta.

One quote is £365 and quotes for 3 caps plus checking flaunching. He says there are two chimney pots at the front on my side plus the one at the back. He's also suggested repointing at some point, but says that lime is not good for repointing chimneys unless required for a listed building as it is too exposed.

The other quote is £180 for two caps, one front, one back.

Photos attached - my house is the one indicated in the pictures.

My understanding is that the stacks are shared, so only one front, one back for each house.

Can anyone help clarify?

 

[Craig89]

The chimney stack at the front looks deeper than the one at the rear. So I would say there was originally 4 flues in it, 2 for your house and 2 for the neighbour. Normally a fireplace in the downstairs front room and a fireplace in the bedroom above, sharing a chimney stack but separate flues. The one in the bedroom was likely decommissioned long ago with the pot removed and flue capped, maybe with an elephants foot, that's why it looks like there's only one. Same probably true of the neighbours. Without getting up there it's hard to say for certain.

 

[Emotionalrollercoaster]

Yeah, after taking a closer look I think you're absolutely right. I suspect that there were originally 4 fireplaces looking at the rooms inside but all bricked up now bar one.

The quotes were so wildly different so was concerned. I think first quote is the one to go with as sounds like he's the more knowledgable of the two and actually visited the property. I've had quotes for various different things and always very cautious because people seem to try it on if you're female and live on your own.

 

[Drayton]

Do ypu know anyone with a drone? I don't imagine Google maps aerial image is sharp enough to see what it looks like up there?

 

[a twig]

Round where we are I’d bite someone’s hand off if they were doing that much work for £365! If the second person hasn’t even bothered to visit the property then yep, I’d definitely go for the first one -

Personally I’d use an NHL 3.5 mortar for the pointing, and only use a cement based mortar on the flaunching - unless you are on the west coast of Scotland or somewhere like that I can’t see it being too much of an issue - not the end of the world either way though

 

[Emotionalrollercoaster]

I've never owned a house before so have absolutely no idea what the cost of anything is! It's so useful to have fora like this to sense check things. It just concerned me that the quotes were pretty different!

Should clarify, the £365 is just for the capping and to check the chimney "health" with ladder access. Repair of flaunching/repointing etc would need scaffolding so hoping it will last me till I can do some other bits on the house to make the scaffolding pay its way.

 

[paulc]

Have you tried asking a chimney sweep for a quote to fit caps ?
Last time I asked one, he was quoting around £50 per pot, but that was a few years back..

As for repointing in lime - I had mine done with NHL3.5, and it is still fine. Built in 1928, the mortar was originally lime, and has stood up to nearly 100 years of English weather. Your property looks to be of a similar age, and quite likely lime mortar throughout.

 

[a twig]

For context a clay elephant’s foot costs £50-70 pounds on its own these days, so 3 of those and you are looking at £150 - £210 in materials straight off the bat without any labour or additional materials