I bought a home several weeks ago. Built in 1987. It has a fireplace in one room and an older Vermont Casting Vigilant wood stove in an adjacent room. A single chimney between the rooms. I spoke today with the sweep who cleaned everything a couple weeks ago. At the time he mentioned no major issues other than a fair bit of creosote buildup at end of stove pipe, No idea when last cleaning was. I asked today about getting a liner installed. He said to call the office and the master sweep will come out next week to give an estimate. But what concerns me is that, while there is terracotta in part of the setup (from what I was told), the sweep seems to recall that the stove vents into the smoke chamber. I've read about sizes and condensation, etc. What really concerns me is the guy mentioned that it may come to pass that I'll have to chose between using the fireplace or the wood stove. As in might as well seal off the fireplace! I saw something on the Chimney Institute of America web site about a redesign whereby the stove pipe is made to go higher into the chimney. Or something like that. Sorry I'm new to all of this. Looking forward to knowing more next week. Any of this sound familiar?
Mike
Mike