As someone who grew up in a family of Steeplejacks (my father was third generation), I am always amazed and delighted by the amount of attention Dibnah got in his day in the UK and continues to get today via the internet. Here in the states, people would always just look at me like I had two heads when I told them what the family business was.
This is interesting and not at all how we would rig a smokestack (as we call them). I worked for the company in the early 90s but we were using rigging that was built by the company in the 60s or earlier. In relation to how we did it his solution seems to me to be overly complicated and perhaps a bit more dicey than what we were doing.
I can write something up if anyone is interested in how we did it.
Count me interested!
I've spent more time on scaffolding and a roof ladder this summer than I hoped I'd ever do in my life, and i don't think you'd get me on any of Fred Dibnah's ladders at gunpoint. I still find it fascinating to see how it's done by people who've made it their trade.
if i may ask a question that betrays my lack of knowledge: why is it that permanent or semi-permanent ladders were not be affixed to some of the steeples? is it mostly aesthetics, or is it also a wear / durability concern?
i also suppose the ladder only gives you access to one portion of the chimney, and you may need to access enough different sections that the most effective method is to set up a ladder exactly where you need it while work is done?
You mentioned steeples first. That may have been a mistake, but I will answer anyway. You climb a steeple from the inside and exit from a door at the base of, or on, the spire. From there we would typically build a platform on which to erect our ladder to go as far up the spire as needed.
All the stacks I worked on, save one I can remember, had beacon lights that needed regular maintenance and all had ladders built in. The ladders did not go all the way to the ground/roof level. That was to keep unauthorized folks from climbing it.
I remember two stacks had permanent catwalks around the top. One of them was quite corroded and not a comfortable place to walk. Like a sibling comment mentioned, that difficulty in maintaining them is a reason why many stacks don't have ladders. Some stacks that don't have them once did, but they were removed due to corrosion.
As far as access, all of the stacks I worked on had only one ladder. If the job was small and there was work that needed to be completed on the other side we had two options.
1. If the repair was low enough we could attach the ropes from which we hung our bosun's chair at the top and swing around to the other side.
2. If the repair was too high to do that or too involved we would build a scaffold all the way around the stack.
I would guess there was no stainless or galvanisation available in the era they were built.
I wouldn’t trust permanently installed ladders that were completely exposed to the elements! Unlike the bigger iron structures, ladders have quite a high surface area/ volume ratio.
I wouldn’t climb up Fred’s ladders in a million years, but at least there was a quality feedback loop!
My understanding is that the stacks were built with a tower of scaffolding on the inside. So it may have been too inconvenient for them to add a ladder on the outside, while the heat on the inside meant it wouldn't have lasted?
There's anothing video of him setting up the ladder on a stack: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Keq-Lig-z74 while definitely sketchy it doesn't seem nearly as bad as the process to make the platforms, which he has to repeat over and over while knocking it down. So in that respect I'm not sure it would've saved him much time overall.
> There's anothing video of him setting up the ladder on a stack: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Keq-Lig-z74
At 16:20 in that video, it shows the camera crew in a cherry picker filming at the same height as him. Ive always thought that Freds chimney days were pre technology like this. but why would he not just put the scaffold platform up in a cherry picker to start with instead of spending days fixing a gazillion ladders to the side of a chimney?
The very end of the video shows the Cherry picker and the size of it. I'd guess it wasn't normally used because of cost and possible limitations on weight carried.
Fred was creating the platform with 3-4 guys and basic tools. Probably a lot cheaper than hiring a specialised Cherry Picker for a day or two.
Imagine a 5/8"(16mm) cable running through 6"x6" (14cmx14cm) pressure treated blocks about 4 feet (1.2 meters) apart. The cable gets wrapped around the stack and connected to itself through a turnbuckle which is tightened to provide tension.
Now think of a steel right triangle with the legs being the vertical and horizontal aspect with the hypotenuse supporting the horizontal leg. The horizontal leg has a vertical tube welded where it meets the hypotenuse. The vertical leg as a hook curving down from the top away from the horizontal leg and a wooden pad at the bottom. We called these stackjacks but a Google search tells me that may have just been what we called them and not their actual name.
The hook hangs on the cable discussed above and the pad rests against the smokestack. 2 2"x12" (4cm x 29cm) walkboards are laid between these stackjacks. The vertical tube at the end accepts poles to which a railing is attached.
TLDR look at these photos of a company that does it exactly how we did. https://apexchimney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/exteriori... https://apexchimney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMGP40400...
Yes, please. I’d really like to read that.