Jim

To answer your question, "Bob did not extrapolate the question from the original so he never got round to answering it. (some Bob speak)"
When I see wood against a chimney like this my verbiage goes something like this. 'wood framing around the chimney structure does not meet clearance to combustibles standards', code requires clearance to combustibles around chimneys as this is a potential fire hazard, I am unclear of the first mention of this in a code book but I am fairly sure these clearance issues go back to the 1920's.

Kevin