Fred Dibnah is someone who has been subject to multiple books and TV documentaries.
Getting Steamed Up! - Fred Dibnah 1991 - YouTube
How to Knock Down a Chimney - Fred Dibnah Style
Imagine you just acquired the site of a former industrial
complex and on that site is a tall chimney. You have no use for it and it’s in
the way of something you plan to build on the site, so it has to come down. For
some reason explosives are out of the question. So, how can one knock down a
chimney quickly without explosives? Taking it apart brick-by-brick by hand
would take forever. Fortunately, there is a way to knock down a chimney fast
without explosives. It’s a technique that has been used to knock down buildings
since ancient times. All you need is some pieces of wood, some tools and a
match.
- Drill two holes in the base of the chimney. One at the bottom. One somewhere up the base straight above the previous hole.
- Make a yardstick with two fixed points that measures the distance between the two holes.
- Knock out some of the chimney at the base. Like cutting down a tree, the direction the chimney will fall depends on what part of the base you removed.
- Build some wooden support structures to replace the bits of structure you removed. Make sure you have measured the gap precisely to ensure it doesn’t collapse prematurely.
- After completing the “cut” get the yardstick and measure the distance between the two holes you made in step 1. You’ll notice that over time the chimney’s weight has pushed down on the wooden supports a bit, making the holes closer together. You’ll also notice a horizontal crack along the other side of the chimney. It means that its now leaning towards the desired direction and its ready to go.
- Hammer in a stick or crowbar horizontally into the crack. This’ll be used to indicate when the chimney is about to go.
- Surround the wooden supports with kindling and splash some petrol on it to make the fire spread evenly.
- Start the bonfire and look at the crowbar. When the crowbar moves - sound the alarm and RUN!
Fred Dibnah
Born in Bolton in 1938, Frederick Travis Dibnah developed a
fascination with steams engines that powered the textile mills of Bolton and
their chimneys – and the men who worked on them. Aged 15, for a bet, he climbed
up Bolton’s tallest chimney. Aged 17, he built one on his mother’s house. From
this he became a steeplejack, gaining a lot of business after a gig fixing
Bolton’s parish church. In 1978, while repairing Bolton Town Hall, Fred was
interviewed, while on top the building, by Alistair MacDonald of BBC Look
North West. His warm friendly character and enthusiasm (and broad
Lancashire accent) proved popular on screen, leading to him becoming the
subject of 1979 BAFTA winning documentary Fred Dibnah, Steeplejack. It
was there that viewers saw him fell a chimney in Rochdale. It made him a
celebrity, leading to more documentaries about him and many gigs restoring
steam engines. By the end of his life, Fred had restored a steam roller, a
traction engine and created a steam-powered Victorian workshop in his back
garden to do such work. In 1999 he became a TV presenter, mostly covering the
industrial revolution. He fell 90 chimneys during his life. He died of bladder
cancer in 2004, aged 66.
Why Not Use Explosives?
“My main competition is the dynamite men, when it comes to felling a chimney. They’ll come along and, you know, blow it up in half a day. So, they only need quarter of money I want. So, really, that’s why, on television, everyone you see going down it’s blown up. None of them done with the pit props and the big fire, like they did it in 1899. I like doing it that way, because its more spectacular, you know. There’s a bit of a build up to it, whereas when you press that plunger – BOOM - that’s it, you know. It’s over with. You not really done so much; you know. You just destroyed something that took a few men a long time to erect and a lot of hard bloody sweat and labour. And when they finished it off, no doubt, they put the union jack up, and you just blown it up with pressing a button.” – Fred Dibnah, from Fred Dibnah, Steeplejack (BBC 2, 1979)
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