Various jobs – BCM Steeplejacks

Chimney head stabilisation – lime haunching and lime pointing

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This chimney head, to the rear of a church, was starting to get unstable and less safe than it should have been. Eventually the roots of the trees would have spread the stones farther apart, and maybe ended up pushing stones off the head of the chimney – although it would have taken many years for it to have gotten to that stage.

The job was simple enough. It consisted of the following tasks.

Dig out the roots as deeply as possible.
Try to kill the remaining traces of roots with weedkilling chemicals.
Apply a heavy hydraulic lime haunching to hold the top stones together and get some weight onto them (great for stabilising masonry).
Deeply rake out the joints and point them with hydraulic lime mortar.

Before starting.

Roots now dug out as deeply as possible, and drowning the open joints with weedkiller.

Nearly ready to apply the new haunching.

New haunching applied and shaped, but the surface has not yet been roughened (this is a cosmetic thing – it brings out the aggregate and makes lime look much better).

Raked out joints – very deeply raked so that the new lime could be packed in as deeply as possible. Shallow (lazy) pointing would have been no good. The mortar needed “tamped” in so that the work would have a structural effect on the chimney head.

More views of the raked out joints.

Spraying weedkiller into the joints before starting the pointing.

Joints now pointed (packed / tamped / mortar rammed in as deep as it would go).

Haunching now roughened up. Note the difference in the surface.

Note that this was all done from ropes and ladders. This saved the client all of the money that would have had to go towards scaffolding up from the ground.

Haunching from above. If anyone thinks it looks a bit like a “gummy bear” sweetie, I would not disagree.

A close up of the surface of the haunching one it had been fully finished. See how the aggregate in the sand now shows.

Joints below the string course now pointed (to the right of my feet).

03/07/2025

New copper lightning conductor tape installed on a church spire

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This spire only had a single copper downtape, so it needed a second tape, plus a circumferential band (to link the two tapes) to meet the current standards..

The new tape and the circumferential band are 25mm x 3mm copper, all clips are gunmetal, and all clips are drilled directly into the stone so that they are secure permanently. If you drill the joints, you’ll get clips coming out over the years.

This company has not fitted any aluminium tapes, or used plastic tape clips, for many years. It’s rubbish and only fit for retail parks, new build office blocks, etc. It’s an insult to a building like a church. Plastic clips break (a lot), and aluminium corrodes at the joints where it’s not concealed by the pvc covering.

The new tape, and the old tape, at the spire head.

The old tape is directly bonded to the finial below that copper cap-piece, but I have added a second link over to it to ensure a good connection.

New tape dropping away down the spire.

Looking up at the upper section of the tape.

Circumferential band. Note the attractive golden clips (expensive). That’s what they call gunmetal. The important thing is that they are very strong and they will never ever corrode.

Junction between the vertical tape and the circumferential band. In view are the gunmetal tape clips, a gunmetal junction clamp, and a gunmetal square clamp.

Same area.

Fitting lightning conductors requires, normally, two buckets full to the brim with clips and power tools.

Four earth rods ready to be driven into the ground. These are linked with threaded couplers so that what goes into the ground is a very long single rod.

Concrete earth pit ready to go into the ground once the rods have been driven.

Note the coupler and the black cap on top of it. That black cap is there to take the hammer blows. Once the rod is right down to soil level you remove the cap, screw on the next rod, fit the driver cap onto the top of that next rod, and continue hammering.

Ready to drive another rod.

All rods driven, earth pit in place, tape in place, and the tape is clipped firmly to the earth rod.

Mortared in.

Earthing completed.

That metal strap that covers the bottom section of the tape is called a vandal guard. It’s there to stop people trying to pull the tape off the wall to take it to the scrapman, and the surprising thing is that they generally do deter this. I suppose the people that think it’s worth stealing 10 feet of copper don’t have any tools or much in the way of brains.

Looking up once the ladders were stripped.

02/07/2025

Fitting of copper bands to spire head

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Making two cardboard templates for the blacksmith so that he had perfect sizes, and then fitting the heavy duty octagonal copper bands he made.

19/05/2025

Bell axle greasing and painting of the mechanism

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Years ago we fully refurbished this belfry mechanism (brought it back from a non-functioning state to perfect working order). This job was just maintenance. It involved opening up the bushes (the bushes are what the axles sit into), cleaning them, greasing them with copper grease, testing the mechanism, and then a little bit of painting.

To properly clean out bell bushes, you need to lift the bell axles out. That invariably means using lifting tackle to lift the entire mechanism just a little bit so that you get the axles up clear of the bushes.

In the shot below you can see that the axle is up and out, and In the background you can see the lifting tackle that made the lifting possible (a chain pull)..

Another picture showing the lifted axle.

Note the dirty appearance around the bush. Over time grease dries out and becomes sticky dirt. It needs cleaned before new grease can be applied.

The bush, and the axle, scraped and wire brushed to death. They are now clean enough to be greased.

Copper grease (lots of it) in the bush – ready to drop the axle back in now.

Axle back in place and excess grease being squashed out of the top (and the sides, which you can’t see in this picture).

Cleaned bush on the other side of the mechanism.

And now stuffed with copper grease.

Bush caps cleaned and packed with grease.

And the cap bolts greased.

Both the caps now bolted back down.

A short video showing bell motion testing with the caps off, and once they were bolted back on.

Once the main task of cleaning and greasing the bushes was completed, some painting was carried out to the half bell wheel and the hanger pins area. There are three pictures of these painted areas below.

02/12/2024

Lintel stabilisation and hydraulic lime pointing

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The picture below gives you an idea of the area that had to be accessed to carry this work out.

The client had already received quotes from building companies, that were obviously going to need scaffold, and the scaffold was going to cost tens of thousands of pounds due to it having to be constructed on the mainstreet and then go up over two roofs to finally reach this hidden area.

It was easily done from ropes.

The lintel is snapped through, and the masonry above desperately needs pointed. There was a risk of the lintel collapsing, and if the lintel had gone so would much of the masonry immediately above it. Also, the householder had water pouring into the kitchen in heavy rain, as it was running through these open joints.

This is the same area. This picture just shows the higher part.

The area once it had been raked out. It’s deeply raked so that the new lime mortar will be packed deeply between the stones, which stabilises everything.

Another view of the raked out area.

Wetting down the joints before starting to point. If the surfaces are damp the short and long term adhesion is much better.

Newly pointed lime mortar.

Another view of the fresh pointing.

This is the new lintel support bracket. It was custom made by our blacksmith.

Three slots cut into the stone to accept new stainless steel flat bars that will “stitch” across the break in the lintel.

One of the “stitching” bars.

All three of the stitching bars immediately after insertion into the slots. Right now it’s a mess, but that’s normal. The slots are first stuffed with resin and as the bars go in the spare resin is forced out.

The lintel support bracket now fully fitted.

And now painted.

The stitching bars area cleaned up and lime pointed.

Looking up at the whole area. The work is now complete, and the lintel is now as solid as it was on the day it was first built.

Another view of the completed work.

07/11/2024

Code 6 lead ridges

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Fitting new timber ridge poles and new code 6 lead to lead sheet association specification, in a difficult to access location.

24/08/2024

Cast iron hopper repair / stabilisation

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This heavy cast iron hopper was found to be badly cracked and badly secured to the wall. It sits directly over a residents front door, and had to be made secure.

First a cardboard template was created, then taken to the blacksmith so that new round bars could be made that would fit perfectly around the hopper and secure it to the wall.

Here you can see the new round bars fitted around the hopper and anchored to the wall using resin anchor bolts. The hopper is now very secure. The crack was also filled with a quality sealant – modern type polysulphide.

Mesh was fitted over the hopper to prevent birds nesting within it, as had been a problem for years previously.

24/08/2024

Maintenance on a castle roof

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Slate patching, gutter cleaning, and downpipe unblocking. General, and much needed, maintenance work.

25/05/2024

Smashed up area of roof fixed

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This area of roof was stuffed with rotten, cracked and broken Burlington slates.

A view of the area before work started.

Ripping out the old to replace with new.

This is how it looked after the work was completed.

10/05/2024

Belfry maintenance at Holy Trinity, Melrose

New Case Study added at the following link.

Belfry maintenance at Holy Trinity, Melrose

28/04/2024

Stepped lead flashing

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Installation of a traditional stepped lead flashing. No subcontractors used or required for this work.

Raggle joints cut out and ready for the newly formed lead.

Lead inserted and secured with traditional lead batts (not these crappy little lead clips that are faster but less secure).

Wetting the joints in preparation for pointing with hydraulic lime mortar.

Joints now pointed.

The rest of the pictures show the completed job. By this time the top strip of lead flashing was on, all lead was cleaned and treated with patination oil, and all raggles were pointed.

19/04/2024

Big spires – or small

We work on a real variety of structures, and many of these are church spires.

Some are pretty huge, and some are not.

The spire shown in the first two pictures is 190 feet high.

But it only took one 10 foot ladder to get up this one.

It was a lime pointing job. All of the joints were fully raked out and repointed with hydraulic lime mortar.

29/06/2021

Lead roof vent (lead burning & slating)

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This page shows the fabrication and installation of a lead roof vent which will, once a plumber has been to site, vent two bathrooms.

The vent was installed on a high castle roof but no scaffold costs were incurred as we do not need scaffold for this kind of work.

Access, leadwork and slating were all handled by BCM Steeplejacks – no subcontractors were required, which helps to keep costs down.

This picture shows the vent on the bench during fabrication. The plastic pipe inside the outer lead pipe is there to give the plumber something to connect onto inside the attic.

Still on the bench but nearly complete.

We added a lead cowl to keep the rain out. The vent is now complete and ready to be installed into the roof.

Vent in position.

Slating around the vent.

These two pictures show the completed job.

Finally, here is the internal plastic pipe. This is what the plumber will connect the bathroom ventilation system onto.

25/11/2020

Various Highland castle roof work

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There was a small sandstone turret to be raked out and pointed with hydraulic lime mortar. The picture below shows it fully raked out.

This one shows it fully pointed.

Pointing was also needed to the adjacent small set of crow steps and the mortar skew between them and the turret.

A view up from the base of the turret.

Looking down on the turret, crow steps, and skew.

All of the new lime work was wrapped in hessian sheeting to protect it from the weather, and slow down the initial curing phase.

A much larger set of crow steps that was also raked out and lime pointed. The following two pictures were taken after pointing had been completed.

New lime protected by heavy hessian sheeting.

In one corner of the roof a long term leak had completely rotted the sarking boards and the joist below them. These obviously had to be replaced.

This was taken after all rotten timbers had been removed and a replacement joist had been spliced in.

Getting the sarking boards on.

Breathable membrane fitted.

Slating up now.

Corner fully repaired.

There were a lot of large hoppers on the castle and they tended to get blocked. One was a particular problem as birds kept building a nest in it. All of the hoppers were capped with stainless steel 1 inch x 1 inch mesh to prevent these problems.

22/10/2020

Code 8 lead flat roof repairs

This was a straight forward part of a larger job. There were two defective sections of lead on the roof that were soon going to crack and allow water through. We cut out the defective areas and lead burned new lead patches on.

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The defective areas before work commenced.

Defective lead cut out and area swept clean.

You cannot lead burn at all until all oxidization has been scraped off the lead (both the new lead and the old).

These last three pictures show the completed work. The area is now safe from leaks.

12/07/2020

Lightning conductor installation

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Various pictures showing a lightning conductor installation on a structure that really needed it – an isolated tower on top of a hill.

It’s a full copper and gunmetal system.

25mm x 3mm copper tape, pvc covered so that the colour better matches the structure.

All clips are gunmetal. No rubbish aluminium tape or plastic clips.

The tower sits on a rocky hilltop so it was necessary to carry out extra earthing to get the resistance to earth down to an acceptable level.

This is the air terminal at the head of the structure.

02/07/2020

Hopper mesh

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Over the years we have had lots of clients ask us to do something to prevent rainwater goods hoppers filling up with leaves, dirt, or having birds nests built in them.

This is the best way we have found to do it. We make up a cover consisting of heavy gauge 1 inch x 1 inch stainless steel mesh that’s secured to the hopper by the ends being folded down around the top perimeter, but can be lifted off when cleaning is required.

23/04/2020

Another new case study – Shifting and re-suspension of a dangerous and heavy bell

Another job that we thought was interesting enough to merit a case study.

Shifting and re-suspension of a dangerous and heavy bell

22/02/2019

New case study – sapele hardwood louvres installation

This was a very interesting and satisfying job, so we wrote a case study showing the various stages of the contract. The link to it is below.

Installation of new Sapele hardwood church steeple louvres and galvanised mesh

21/02/2019

Spire general maintenance: pointing, timber louvre painting, weathervane painting. lightning conductor repairs

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This work was carried out in 2018 and involved lots of general maintenance work.

The first task was to do quite a lot of raking out, followed by hydraulic lime pointing. This was unusually difficult and time consuming due to the concave flutings that run all the way down the spire.

All of the timber louvre windows were prepared and painted.

The weathervane (finial) was prepared and painted with a high quality metallic based exterior paint (£70 per 1 litre at time of purchase).

The lightning conductor had been vandalised. The local idiots had tried, and failed, to tear it off the wall to sell it for scrap. We removed the damaged section and replaced it with 25mm x 3mm copper to match the existing (over time the new copper tape will oxidize and become green like the existing tape).

This is the damaged section. If you zoom the picture up by clicking on it, you’ll see how twisted the tape is.

The same area once repairs had been completed.

27/01/2019

Braemar Castle, Deeside, Highland

BCM were called in to check the safety of the walls at Braemar Castle. We carried out a comprehensive inspection of all exterior surfaces.

12/12/2018

Louvre painting

A recent louvre painting job.

14/06/2018

Cleaning a heavily vegetated church spire

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This spire had a heavy coat of algae which the church wanted removed.

Top section of the spire cleaned.

Scraping it off. Once this first part was done used we used brushes to remove any remaining deposits.

All algae removed.

14/06/2018

Downpipe painting

Red Oxide undercoat and exterior gloss topcoat.

14/06/2018

Slate patching and gutter cleaning work

Abseil access saves a fortune on scaffold costs on jobs like this.

14/06/2018

Church spire from the top

Beginning another job on a church spire.

14/06/2018

Cast iron gutter repairs, slate patching, and gutter cleaning – Edinburgh

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Most contractors use scaffold to repair / replace cast iron gutters, especially heavy Ogee gutters like these. We can do this work from rope access, without compromising the quality of the job.

The picture below shows the suspension system used to do the job.

First 6 foot section of gutter fitted. It’s nailed into the timber wallplate and further secured by the retaining straps

There were two smashed sections of gutter. You can see the gap where the 2nd one needs to go.

The bottom two courses of slates have been stripped off. You need to do this when replacing gutters. A lot of them ended up being replaced with newly purchased reclaimed slates, as the existing were soft and rotten.

The joints are sealed in the traditional (and best) way. Boiled linseed oil putty is inserted into the joint and then compressed by the gutter joint bolt. It gives a perfect and long lasting seal.

This shot shows the completed job. The gutters are fitted and the slates have been patched back in.

This job also involved a lot of slate patching and gutter cleaning all around the roof. The following pictures show a little of that work in progress.

31/03/2018

New Case Study – Glasgow Church Spire Rebuild

We’ve just added a fairly in depth Case Study that shows a full spire head rebuild – link below.

Glasgow Church Spire Rebuild

19/02/2018

Installation of permanent ladder and louvre windows mesh

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This page shows a brand new installation of a permanent ladder to give access up inside a steeple, and galvanised mesh to prevent birds getting in to the building (as they were previously).

Looking up the ladder from the base.