[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Morecambe Ex Pat

I was thinking about the height above ground level but what dictated the height each one had to be.

The tallest chimney I've ever climbed was a 200 footer, at a mill in Heapy Clough Chorley.

The two tallest in Acc would probably be Broad Oak Print Works and Bulloughs. Broad Oak had 6 Lancashire boilers and generated their own electricity.
The bricks used in chimneys are not your common house brick, they were moulded to curve in the diameter of the chimney, starting with the largest diam at the bottom, sometimes 12 or more rows at the bottom, tapering as it went up to 6 rows at the top. 1/2 million bricks.

I worked with Fred Cooper a steeplejack from Blackburn, he could do a five foot rise in a day, two of us stacking bricks and mortar at the 4 corners on the platform while he laid the bricks, and you had to work hard to keep up with him, two more blokes at the bottom loading bricks and mortar on the hoist, operated by Bill Seed, and two more blokes mixing mortar and unloading the bricks from the lorries.
When that was done it was back to Fred's workshop to make the steel bands for the top 50 ft
all the diameters of the chimneys he ever worked on were marked out on the loft floor, and we put the steel plate through the rollers on the bending machine till it had the right curve, then drill the ends for the bolts and then bend the ends to the right angle to join up and pull tight on the chimney at the right place.
Then back to the chimney a week later, after the mortar had chance to set, and fit the bands in place, then give them a final coat of red lead paint

Retlaw.