Startup taps post-quake demand
Canterbury businessman’s Chim-Lite venture replaces heavy masonry chimneys
Monday, December 12 2011 || News || BY Alan Wood, Businessday.co.nz
Newton is trying to get a new post-earthquake business up and running, one pertinent to the violent shaking that has taken place.
His idea is that older homes such as villas or even state houses will lose capital value if they do not have a chimney and pots in pride of place.
Ranfurly St, Kaiapoi, is the site of one his more recent jobs but Newton naturally wants much more uptake for his work to replace bricks and mortar with a Colorsteel-based replica.
Newton was previously a science teacher at Shirley Boys' High School. He resigned to repair the damage his large house in Normans Rd suffered during the September 4 earthquake.
But the repair job got too big for him when the home – more than 100 years old – was hammered in the subsequent February and June quakes.
Newton said he had always tinkered with inventions.
He featured in The Press in 2009 as having driven to school in a self-assembled electric car as part of an effort to promote alternatives to fossil fuels and draw attention to global warming.
More recently he has been involved with Fletcher EQR (earthquake recovery), helping pull down quake-damaged chimneys, and is still doing emergency repair work as a source of income.
The Chim-Lite company was incorporated in September, but the idea came to him earlier in the year.
"As we were pulling down all these heavy masonry chimneys I thought `goodness gracious there's got to be a better way than this', so I developed the Chim-Lite concept based on what we all recognise as durable – Colorsteel," Newton said.
The chimney – weighing about 75kg installed – was fixed to the upper roof surface to encircle a metal flue from the fireplace or woodburner below.
The steel was pressed and crimped to form the shape of a chimney including dents for mortar lines and also to give the product strength, he said.
Coombes Sheetmetal & Fabrication, based in Blenheim Rd, helped in the design of three basic models to keep production costs down.
"Chimneys come in all breeds, but in order to manufacture something that is relatively inexpensive to be able to get under the Earthquake Commission cap on replacement cost for chimneys as well provide them with a flue and fire, then they've got to be inexpensive," Newton said.
Chimneys were being offered to homeowners as part of the Fletcher process, though they could be purchased separately, he said.
They were valued at around $10,000 including installation and scaffolding, to match what EQC was generally paying out for damaged chimneys.
After the September 4 earthquake Newton had run Heritage Replica Chimneys which rebuilt with a lightweight timber frame and brick veneer in a process designed by his brother. But he said the product, while it looked good, was too expensive – at $12,500 – for the Fletcher process.
The replacement chimney helped retain the aesthetic value in classic houses.
"A villa without its chimneys is like a castle that lost its turrets...the old character homes in Christchurch don't suit an industrial-looking silver flue."
