Kirby Muxloe Chimneys refuse to fall to explosives

At 11.00am this morning the 2 chimneys at Timken Works, Desford Lane, Kirkby Muxloe were due to be demolished by explosive means whilst being filmed by the BBC for the new Richard Hammond science programme “Engineering Connections”. However, as often happens, the best laid plans and organisation can still go wrong when technical hitches occur and the chimneys refused to fall.

AR Demolition had organised the event to perfection, PDC Explosive Engineers had drilled and charged the chimneys and the lucky raffle prize winners pushed the buttons only for a misfire of over 50% of the explosive charges to occur and the chimneys to remain defiantly standing.

Having ascertained why the chimneys did not fall by explosive means AR Demolition then used their state of the art Volvo High Reach Demolition machine to bring the chimneys down safely as the large crowd cheered the machine driver.

Investigations by the explosive engineers following the demolition confirmed that a misfire had occurred with over 50% of the 5kg of explosives in each chimney failing to detonate.

The failure of the explosives was disappointing but the contingency plan prepared by AR Demolition as standard procedure on all of their projects meant that the chimneys could be quickly and safely demolished.