Squirrel stuck in chimney

bstewert

bstewert

TreeHouser
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
1,500
Location
Portland, OR
OK, it's not tree climbing, but climbing was involved.

I'm on Dan's list for cat rescues, but every once in awhile I get a call for a raccoon or squirrel stuck in a chimney. The roofers and animal control people had not returned this lady's call in 3 days, so she called the fire dept, and then me. The scratching noise from the fireplace (gas insert) was pretty furious.

It was barely raining and I knew the cedar shingles would be slick on the 2 1/2-story house. A storm was supposed to come in 3 hrs. My idea was to drop a rope from the chimney cap, but how to get up there?

There were no trees for a highline, but there was a tree in the neighbor's yard I could anchor to at the angle needed, and then toss the rope over the house, and at least have something to tie into while I climbed the ladder. After asking the neighbor's permission, I set out to get my rope over the house. Not as easy as I thought. The throwline would get caught under the shingles as I would pull up the rope and I'd have to pull the rope down, untie, and start over.

Between the roof pitch and the wet mossy slickness on the cedar shake, there was zero traction. I literally pulled myself up on my knees. Then there was another 7' up to the top of the chimney, so I hauled up a 6' ladder. If I slipped, at least I'd be wrapped around the chimney. I got to the top and it was clear how the squirrel got in there. Tied a throwbag to the rope and lowered it down the center flue to measure the correct distance, then tied a knot and lowered the rope down the outside flue.

Coming back to the ladder was easier because now I had a second rope tied to the roof cap, but you still could not stand up. It had rained a little more by now, and when I got myself onto the 2nd step headed down, the bottom of the ladder slide out on the slick deck. I literally caught the ladder with a foot. There was no slack in either rope, so I was OK, just a bit embarrassed.

So now it's wait a day or two, and see if the little guy figures out how to climb out. The roof cap is a poor design. It should have a screen around the bottom, like in the pic on this website:

http://www.wildlife.pro/squirrel-in-chimney.html


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A couple of pieces of foam, like out of an old couch cushion, will allow you to scoot around on the roof without slipping. I have roofed as steep as 12/12 with nothing but the cushions holding me up there. I have sat for a moment and nailed on shingles on a 14/12, but a couple is all you nail before starting to slip. :O
 
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  • #6
The lady called me this morning and said she heard nothing yesterday or last night or this morning at all. So it went from furious scratching to nothing overnight, and now two days of total quiet. I think the squirrel figured it out.

I'm going to add a screen on the bottom of the cap to prevent this from happening again.
 
Back when I did a lot of roofing, in order to save time doing estimates I would measure from the ground. The only problem was the tape would get hung up on every darn course of shingles. One night in my sleep I thought of using a shuttlecock to keep the tape off the roof. It works awesome and I would imagine if threaded onto your throw line before your climbing line it would work as well. Good luck with it and good on you for releasing the noise maker.
 
I've measured a few from the ground, but usually I was quicker to hop up top and measure. You ever use foam?
 
O never heard of it, but it makes a lot of sense as you are spreading out the surface area. I hope I did my last roof ever last time. Ha ha! It is hard to pass up five or six G's for two days work though.
 
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Husabud, are you a badminton player, too? Believe me, I thought about using the coke bottle trick. The main problem, as I could see it, was the angle I was pulling the rope, 90° to the shingle. The throwline would slide up under the shake as you pulled, then by the time the rope got to that point it was stuck. Another issue was that some of the ridgecap pieces had broken off, leaving the exposed nails as a snag point. It took four attempts to get it. I often take much more than that throwing to a tree.

Another thing I noticed was some shingles had tiny pinholes. I only paid attention to that when I was at the top of the ladder and my eyes were close to the wood. I'm wondering if there is some kind of traction shoe. The holes were smaller than a golf spike. Really tiny. I will look again when I go back up to retrieve my ropes.
 
bstewert said:
Husabud, are you a badminton player, too? Believe me, I thought about using the coke bottle trick. The main problem, as I could see it, was the angle I was pulling the rope, 90° to the shingle. The throwline would slide up under the shake as you pulled, then by the time the rope got to that point it was stuck. Another issue was that some of the ridgecap pieces had broken off, leaving the exposed nails as a snag point. It took four attempts to get it. I often take much more than that throwing to a tree.

Another thing I noticed was some shingles had tiny pinholes. I only paid attention to that when I was at the top of the ladder and my eyes were close to the wood. I'm wondering if there is some kind of traction shoe. The holes were smaller than a golf spike. Really tiny. I will look again when I go back up to retrieve my ropes.
Click to expand...

During storm cleanup I wear my corks because of shake roofs. Roofing supply stores sell Corkers, they are kind of a roman type of sandal with carbide spikes.
 
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Darned if I didn't get another 'squirrel stuck in a chimney' call. Same gas insert setup. This time the roof was steeper, and it was comp shingles. The second lady even had the same name as the first lady.

Decided I'd go check out the Korkers. Turns out the company is right here in Portland. I must have driven by it 200 times and never knew. Got the 3-in-1 sandal that straps over your boot. Then you velcro on a foam pad for metal roofs, a rubber pad for comp, or corks for cedar shake. I was anxious to try them out, so when I got home I went up my own roof for a test. Wow, pretty good!

http://www.korkers.com/


Turns out there was chirping associated with the scratching, so I guessed maybe a bird had gotten in there. Whatever it was, it was getting out, because the scratching was only in the mornings. I told the lady we could at least go up and check out the vent cap for a possible hole.

No noise for two days, then it was back. I brought my ladder and rope gear, but thought I'd give it a go with just the shoes. After about 10 steps my confidence went to zero, so it was back down for the ropes. Just too steep for me. Turns out there were no holes in the vent cap except this 3/4" gap at the top of the screen. I couldn't picture a bird getting through that, so I had the lady listen down at the fireplace while I made scratching noises up top. We concluded it was a persistent bird "trying" to get in that gap.

Used HTP as my safety line, but was concerned about how harsh the aggressive comp roof was on the rope. I'm wondering what might be a better choice to use.


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When I work my roof, which is 10:12, I wrap the rope with a burlap bag where it crosses the peak...works good. Dragging it around on the roof itself is amazingly abrasive, so I keep the darn thing bagged and move that around with me...since I'm not doing a whole lot back and forth, it's not too onerous.
 
My shop roof is 6-12 pitch,metal roof .It needs a coat of roof paint every 6-8 years ,Not all that big of a deal .The first time I did it damned if I didn't step in the aluminized paint and down I went .

Well sliding on a metal roof about the only thing you can do is spread eagle to gain as much sliding resistant to not go in the hole .I stopped about 5 feet from the edge and it's 20 feet over the side .Needless to say since it's been with a fall arrest harness tied to a life line .
 
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  • #18
I was barely up there. Just pulling the rope over the ridge was tough on the rope. If I were doing any real work and moving around a
lot, I'd want to use something different.

Once I was working on a siding job and a guy slid off the metal roof. Neither of us were tied in. It was only one story and he landed in the bushes. Still pretty scary.
 
What do you mean by 10-12 or 6-12 for a roof ?
I saw that one or two time before, but it's new to me.
 
10 years ago, before my arborist life, I put new gutters on my roof. I had only a 2 meters wide scaffold, and an access by a roof window.
So I went on the roof by the side and removed 2 row of terracotta tiles all the way long, storing them a little above. I removed the old gutter and its fastenings in order to screw and mount the new ones.
Not easy at all, working under my feet level, leaning toward the edge on the 30° slope, 2 stories and half over a concrete floor. I had a safety line along the top of the roof, but I can't use it because of the tile's piles.
But I made the job with no serious trouble.
Until the 10 last minutes... when it began raining.:X
A small little rain, but enough to wet the thin layer of algae on the tiles (north side of the roof). Tell me about slippery !:O
Scary as hell.
I was pretty stuck here. The scaffold was 8 meters far away, a very long way, and the stored tiles were in the way to the roof window. And me on the onliest dry place of the roof, around 1'x1'.
At this moment, my wife came outside and shouted at me " don't forget you have to get your daughter in 15 minutes !".
Damned.

I choose the window. It took me almost 10 minutes to make the 2 meters long (slippery and cluttered) way.
All shaking after that.
Bad recall.
 
Interesting.
And completely new to me. We go by degrees, here.

Man, I just learn so much from this place:)

My house has a 50 degree roof. That was a bitch to put shingles on.

Shingles are almost unknown in Denmark, but my wife and I fell in love with the look of them when we lived in the US, and decided to use them on our house.

The company we bought them from does a LOT of business in Russia, so there was a manual for laying them , written in cyrillic alphabet, in each package. I wish I had kept one to show you.

Commie shingles:lol:
 
Thank you Butch.
Here, it's percents or degrees, depending on the applications.
OK I got it. So Al's roof has almost the slope of my roof and Stig's roof is ten degrees over Burnham's.
I definitely don't want to take a slide like Al.
Woa. I'll be dead by hearth brake before passing the edge.

Here too, we can see few roofs in shingles. I think they have a reputation of non lasting, or at least, less lasting than the others.
The most frequent house's roofs are in tiles (terracotta or concrete). Slate too.
The metal roofs are mainly for the factories and storages (steel) or the old buildings in town ( zinc).
 
Correct me if I'm wrong and this just maybe for California, but I dont think shingles or shakes are legal anymore for fire hazard reason?
 
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