Top hat

This rather natty looking piece of kit is our Savu piippu hattu (smoke stack hat) - I had to order it specially, as we have a long and narrow chimney, and it was recommended in the surveyor's report that we put one in place to prevent damage from snow. (why hasn't it been done in the last 30 years??? Who knows). The frame pieces are designed to fit over the concrete plinth at the top of the chimney, so as to make assembly easy. Except.... The standard plinth is 5 cm deep, and when I took the fittings up to our plinth I discovered (a) the plinth is 10 cm deep, and (b) because we have a smoke extractor on the top, the cover isn't high enough to clear it. After some thought, a trip to the local Iron mongers, and a couple of hours of attaching extra bits here is the result. I had to drill into the plinth and secure the frames with nice long screws, and the narrow extension bar is a piece of aluminium tube, with an 8 cm bolt replacing the 1 cm one. So now all the snow sits on the cover, instead of going down the chimney and cracking the bricks and concrete.