Hello everyone,
I just stumbled across this forum, and would like to ask the experts here a question regarding my new house & the issues I'm having with my wood burning fireplaces.
We purchased a 60 year old 2 story brick Georgian in Chicago this past summer. My wife & I are very pleased with just about every aspect of the house, except for the fireplaces.
The house has 2 fireplaces, one in the living room on the first floor, and the second directly below that in the finished basement. The chimney for both fireplaces is brick, and exists outside of the house along the outside wall.
This fall I built our first fire in the living room, and all was well until I went into the basement to get a beverage out of the beer-fridge, and discovered a strong smoke smell down there. The house has new windows and doors, and the fireplace in the living room does not have a combustion vent, so I immediately suspected that the fire upstairs is drawing air in from the chimney to the basement fireplace to feed itself (hoping this was the case, as it's an easy fix). So I tried a fire again, but this time with a few windows in the livingroom open for more direct ventilation. This seemed to work a bit better, but we still had new smoke smell in the basement.
So I called one of the larger fireplace maintenance companies in town to come out and have a look. They did a camera inspection & found basically all the issues I was praying would not be there..
1) The basement flue is a mess. There is evidence of some time with a missing raincap on this flue & there is a lot of debris stuck in there. The damper is broken and the tiles lining the flue are hanging off inside/are broken off.
2) The living room flue tiles are supposedly cracked & pitted with creosote stuck in between them. They claim this cannot be cleaned.
3) He was not able to perform a test to see visible light between the 2 flues, but he believes there are cracks between the 2 liners and that is causing the smoke to fall from one flue into the other and spill into the basement. Makes sense considering the behavior and the other evidence found.
So, I get about a $10,000 estimate to fix both:
-Stainless Steel liners for both flues (need to be 7" round due to a narrow chimney) ($4000 for the livingroom, $5000 for the basement. Living room is straight, basement takes a bend before it goes up).
-Electric fan cap on the roof for ventilation
-Repair any misc damage in the smoke chamber (none reported during the inspection).
Now I'm thinking.. To heck with the basement, I'll put in a ventless gas unit down there & seal the chimney off, or just seal it alltogether & make it purely decorative. Livingroom, I'd like to keep the wood burning unit there but the cost seems crazy to me.
Here are my questions:
-Is this estimate ridiculous? (I'm waiting for an appointment to get a 2nd opinion). If I were to just re-line the livingroom, what a realistic cost & is the fan cap necessary?
- I know creosote is bad, but in a masonry chimney, what is the real danger if I just plugged up the basement fireplace to take care of the smoke issue, and continue to use the livingroom one as is?
Thanks in advance folks,
Pat S.
I just stumbled across this forum, and would like to ask the experts here a question regarding my new house & the issues I'm having with my wood burning fireplaces.
We purchased a 60 year old 2 story brick Georgian in Chicago this past summer. My wife & I are very pleased with just about every aspect of the house, except for the fireplaces.
The house has 2 fireplaces, one in the living room on the first floor, and the second directly below that in the finished basement. The chimney for both fireplaces is brick, and exists outside of the house along the outside wall.
This fall I built our first fire in the living room, and all was well until I went into the basement to get a beverage out of the beer-fridge, and discovered a strong smoke smell down there. The house has new windows and doors, and the fireplace in the living room does not have a combustion vent, so I immediately suspected that the fire upstairs is drawing air in from the chimney to the basement fireplace to feed itself (hoping this was the case, as it's an easy fix). So I tried a fire again, but this time with a few windows in the livingroom open for more direct ventilation. This seemed to work a bit better, but we still had new smoke smell in the basement.
So I called one of the larger fireplace maintenance companies in town to come out and have a look. They did a camera inspection & found basically all the issues I was praying would not be there..
1) The basement flue is a mess. There is evidence of some time with a missing raincap on this flue & there is a lot of debris stuck in there. The damper is broken and the tiles lining the flue are hanging off inside/are broken off.
2) The living room flue tiles are supposedly cracked & pitted with creosote stuck in between them. They claim this cannot be cleaned.
3) He was not able to perform a test to see visible light between the 2 flues, but he believes there are cracks between the 2 liners and that is causing the smoke to fall from one flue into the other and spill into the basement. Makes sense considering the behavior and the other evidence found.
So, I get about a $10,000 estimate to fix both:
-Stainless Steel liners for both flues (need to be 7" round due to a narrow chimney) ($4000 for the livingroom, $5000 for the basement. Living room is straight, basement takes a bend before it goes up).
-Electric fan cap on the roof for ventilation
-Repair any misc damage in the smoke chamber (none reported during the inspection).
Now I'm thinking.. To heck with the basement, I'll put in a ventless gas unit down there & seal the chimney off, or just seal it alltogether & make it purely decorative. Livingroom, I'd like to keep the wood burning unit there but the cost seems crazy to me.
Here are my questions:
-Is this estimate ridiculous? (I'm waiting for an appointment to get a 2nd opinion). If I were to just re-line the livingroom, what a realistic cost & is the fan cap necessary?
- I know creosote is bad, but in a masonry chimney, what is the real danger if I just plugged up the basement fireplace to take care of the smoke issue, and continue to use the livingroom one as is?
Thanks in advance folks,
Pat S.
