Quote Originally Posted by Meddle View Post
Speaking of structure .... how are these built? Inner stairwells of some kind to get to the top?

Most steeples themselves are just reinforced tapered timber framing,with all of the cross bracing,the ones I have seen you really do not have much room to crawl up them.

There should be a vent at the very top to allow airflow to pull moisture and heat build up out but if they were installed they are forgotten about maintance wise.

I did a smaller version years ago where the scaffolding rental cost would have been $50,000 so we used a heavy lift helicopter after detaching the base,it became a high adrenaline day.But it was safer and faster rebuilding it on the ground.

That church off set the costs by letting a cell company put an attenna inside,they paid some of the costs and a yearly fee.

With the churches with bell tower steeples,they thought the sound would carry further if they removed the louvers that deflected water and found out what a bad idea that was years down the road.

They have stone steeples in Europe that are massive,they recently finished one that was 1.3 million to disassemble and rebuild but that was a 1600s church.