We built another set of 2 chimney caps that are designed after our Tuscan style chimney cap design for our clients named Bill & Brenda Gross through their general contractor named Bob O'Donnel in Chester New Jersey. They had been patiently waiting over 6 months for us to begin this project since they had OK the cost and design.

It almost did not happen, as the general contractor waited 5 month to mail in the initial deposit. I did not catch it until it was time to look at who was next on my schedule and saw that he had not actually paid us yet. The inside dimensions of the two bases for these chimney caps needed to be 77.75" x 38.25" for this double flue rectangular one and 43.13" squared for the single flue Sister cap. We shared about 100 digital photos with the client through e-mail during the construction process.

One detail you will see here that we had not done before was to add this 3/4" oak plywood inside the copper base for better strength. For such a large 7'+ long chimney cap that will weigh over 300#, it needs more than just the 20oz copper sheet metal sides. These side walls would be fine after it is installed, but getting up there without damage to the sides is tricky. This time we made the crate base first to rest the chimney cap safely onto before this gets too heavy for us to lift. The blue frame (shown above) is the wood base we custom angle cut that will be attached to the chimney box with 8" lag screws before the chimney cap goes on.

We had exhausted the 6 full sheets of copper we had here in stock, but this job had to be postponed another 3 weeks due to unavailable funds from the general contractor. I had to begin a local gutter job to keep busy. I still did some work on it in the evenings with what I could do without more copper sheets, but progress was slow.

Both chimney caps have an 8/12 pitch hipped roof design to match the house roof, along with a thick 16 gauge stainless steel screening. We also are including custom wood frames for the chimney caps to rest on and attach with the stainless steel mounting hardware, so these chimney caps are secure, yet removable for cleaning or other maintenance.

I finally finished it up the gutter job on 12/29, and was able to finish this chimney cap on 12/29/06. I then worked on finishing up the crate to close it off so it will be safe while I build it's square sister cap.

The Second Square Sister Chimney Cap

Here below is the square Sister to the one above. Built in the same manner, but to a little different scale. It is wider, but not as long. The first photo shows the base on it's side and the mid-section arched column set. This is the first one of this style I have made with all 4 column corners seamless to better hide the rivets holding it together over the center of the arch instead. I only wish I had thought of this sooner. There are nearly 1,000 rivets that hold this chimney cap together, but very few of them will be seen from the outside. Just like with the auto makers, where they go to extremes to hid the fasteners for aesthetics, yet still be just as strong.

These pipes shown in the second photo are pretty much just decorative, but take me nearly a full days work to measure each of the 16 sides, cut, fold, and attach these pipes in a single piece to each of the 4 columns with the 14 rivets from inside the columns. Alignment of the holes is very tricky.

Being perfectly square there is no ridge across the top. I have to make the hipped roof meet in a single point in the center. Making the roof skin over this is easy enough, but the best placement of the internal bracing is more tricky. I have done it before on the Eastaff caps with just 4 braces, but it is too hard to bring all these 8 roof braces up to the center point at an odd angle to connect just right in the middle.

Unlike a house roof with 24" centers, I do not want this to have any more than 12" between braces or hips. I made this equilateral pyramid to suspend in the roof bracing upside down, like the female chalice in the movie The DaVinci Code. This had just the right angle for the 8/12 pitch roof it needs to have. This will give a very good support to the copper roof skin over them.

These chimney caps have 4 important firsts for our design and fabrication process: stronger copper base skirt with the oak plywood behind it, an opening screen on the rear side, seamless columns, and the chalice roof support inside the roof of the Sister cap. It is amazing seeing our work evolve.

The final measure for both of these chimney caps was 332.95 square feet, which was 95.84 square feet over the estimated amount. The shipping was $500 less, but with the added oak plywood inside the base they still wound up getting $2,190.45 in free fabrication work. For both this and the Matovich chimney cap bids (shown below) I had based the estimate on the copper used in the Silbernagel cap and multiplied that by how much larger or smaller these caps were to be. My mistake was how I did not take into consideration: (a) the extra height they would need to be, to be in the same proportions. (b) the steeper roof pitch. (c) and the need for cross bracing under the roof skin for such large caps. I had no bracing inside the Silbernagel cap since it was small and had not heat exhaust issue. I also offered a substantial contractors discount, but that was a huge mistake, since he was more difficult to work with that most any homeowner I have dealt with over the last decade. This reminds me why I do not like to work with contractors. My aim is to please the homeowner who is really buying our work, but I was not able to contact them at all.

The wife of the couple getting these caps on their home finally contacted me to relay the zip code for the contractor for the shipping label. I was greatly relieved to find out the contractor had forwarded the digital photos and they were very pleased with the results (whew.....).

$5,066.25 - rectangular chimney cap 202.65 sq' x $25 per sq'
$3,257.50 - square chimney cap 130.3 sq' x $25 per sq'
  $ 494.45 - both wood base frames 89.9 board' x $5.5'
  $ 350.00 - oak plywood inside base 9" x 35' x $10'
  $ 500.00 - large crate
  $ 400.00 - smaller crate
  $ 600.00 - shipping

$10,668.20 grand total

Total cost for this 2 unit project: $8,477.75
$2,190.45 savings
(I plan to get better at these estimates)