chimney inspector was just here......no good news

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TODJ2002

Member
Nov 4, 2010
29
UPSTATE NY
well the inspector confirmed what I pretty much already knew anyway. My chimney is not safe. My house is pre 1900 so I was sure I would not get any good news. I wanted to take out the oil furnace and put in a wood furnace for next season, but now with the additional cost of installing liner ect. Im not sure what I am going to do. Inspector says the chimney needs to be torn down to roof ridge also and I also pretty much knew that was coming also. missing and broken bricks ect. anyway if I tear down the chimney and let him install the rest, he says im looking at approx. $1600. geez.... toss in another $1500 or so for the wood furnace and I am thinking twice about messing with any of it. I am a diy'er tho so maybe I will install the liner myself over the summer. Looks like about $800 in parts from what I am looking at on the internet. Im guessing it cant be to difficult to send the liner down the chimney. also if I take the old oil furnace and about half of the duct work to the scrap yard then do the labor myself that would cut the cost significantly. Now I have some thinking and decision making to do. Maybe I will just stick with the pellet stoves and put my money into insulating the crap out of this old house. hmmm.....
 
Option #2 may be your best route. You could save some $'s in the long run by zone heating with a couple of stoves rather than heating the whole house. Also, I don't know what the bylaws are like in your jurisdiction, but up here you need an HVAC license to install a combustion liner (except for a class 'A', but that still requires the approval of a WETT certified inspector). You could always take down the chimney yourself to below the rafters in your attic, then cover the hole & insulate. Heck, while your up there, insulate the attic :)
 
well, I did already insulate the attic this summer. I blew 70 bags in the attic. It has made a huge difference for sure I would guess. My situation at this old house is kinda lengthy but I will try to keep it short. 1. no insulation in the walls. I may blow in the walls as much as I can afford this summer. 2. I am not heating the entire house. I am heating the downstairs and 2 bedrooms upstairs. the rest of the upstairs has been made into and apartment which is heated by a gas monitor. I have 2 pellet stoves downstairs and I enjoy the pellet stoves but I was looking to get a furnace to run thru ducts to get a more even heat. this is a very old house and broken up odly. at one time in its life it was at least 3 different living quarters and there are 3 old chimneys in this house. only one is functional that is connected to the oil sucking furnace. and after today the inspector says not safe. which I suspected. 3. one of my pellet stoves is located in the living room and this makes furniture arrangment limited and is noisy to sit nest to. liv room is only about 13x13. 4. I would like to move the stove from liv room to another area, but the way house if broken up i dont have mcuh for options. Maybe I could take down some walls to open up the liv room and move stove to a side of the room that isnt right next to seating area. I worry about weight bearing issues tho and cost for all of that will also get high. I really wanted to just install a wood furnace in the basement and run new shorter ducts to 4 or 5 different locations downstairs for a nice even heat. and my plan was to really only use the wood furnace during the really cold times (dec, jan, feb). I need to rethink my options and decide on the most economical solution and long term solutiion. If I knocked down one large wall and built a new header ect that would give me a much larger liv rooma and i could install stove on the other side of the room where the blower noise would probaably be MUCH less annoying. thinking.........
 
also my ceilins are 9 1/2 feet high so guess where most of the heat is. lol. I do have ceiling fans on low to help disperse the heat tho.
 
How about taking out the condemned chimney and replacing it with a Super 'A' and installing the wood furnace? Unless of course the chimney is somehow tied in with the structure of the building.
 
Just an FYI you already may know as we had this come up in a house we bought years ago.

Old houses with knob and tube wiring can't have blown insulation. Fire hazard.
 
Have you been over at the Old House Forums? Google it. There's lots of cross traffic between Hearth and that one (no surprise, all of us with 100+ year old houses also have vested interest in heating issues) and you may find someone over there with a similar setup or past experience to guide you on the insulation/duct/general house part of things.

Good luck!
 
You could always remove the bad section of chimney and build a chase off of that and lust reline down through the old chimney with class A through the chase. If the remaining brick is in good shape, later when ya have extra cash, you could put stone veneer over the brick and the chase to make everything look the same. Just an idea.
 
In a way this is good news. Now at least you know what you are up against and probably saved the house from a potential fire. You can do this and come next fall you will be very happy you did.
 
Hogwildz said:
You could always remove the bad section of chimney and build a chase off of that and lust reline down through the old chimney with class A through the chase. If the remaining brick is in good shape, later when ya have extra cash, you could put stone veneer over the brick and the chase to make everything look the same. Just an idea.
Neither of us has seen it, but do you think there would be room? a 6" ID class A is about a 10" OD if I am not mistaken. Some older chimneys are 12" x 12", but the majority of the older ones I've seen were 8" x 8" or 8" x 12"
 
It depends on what the interior size of the tiles he has it. For through the old chimney, he can do an insulated flex or double wall rigid which is insulated between the shells. I didn't measure my double wall rigid but it should fit down a 7" x 7" or larger, depending on how straight and true the old flue is, and if there are hugs blobs of mortar ooze, it may take some work. The flex with insulation would be best at 8" x 8" or larger. Once he gets to the top of the old chimney he can go with the class A, which if he uses the double wall class A, that I think is 8" outside diameter, forget what the triple wall is. Maybe 10"?
 
grinnell said:
Just an FYI you already may know as we had this come up in a house we bought years ago.

Old houses with knob and tube wiring can't have blown insulation. Fire hazard.


the house has been re wired to get rid of the knob and tube. thanks for the warning tho.
 
Hogwildz said:
You could always remove the bad section of chimney and build a chase off of that and lust reline down through the old chimney with class A through the chase. If the remaining brick is in good shape, later when ya have extra cash, you could put stone veneer over the brick and the chase to make everything look the same. Just an idea.

the chimney runs thru the roof down thru the center of the house. so if I decide to do this I will tear chimny down to the roof ridge and not rebuild that portion. I am not going to use pipe insulation either since the chimney is not exposed to the elements. alot of money to get this project completed so maybe this year I will work on gettin the chimney safe and do more insulation, and the following year I will install the wood furnace. also by that time I will prob have enough wood cut to heat the house for a few winters. that would be nice.
 
mfglickman said:
Have you been over at the Old House Forums? Google it. There's lots of cross traffic between Hearth and that one (no surprise, all of us with 100+ year old houses also have vested interest in heating issues) and you may find someone over there with a similar setup or past experience to guide you on the insulation/duct/general house part of things.

Good luck!

No I have not been the the old house forum, but I will check it out today. thanks.
 
Hogwildz said:
It depends on what the interior size of the tiles he has it. For through the old chimney, he can do an insulated flex or double wall rigid which is insulated between the shells. I didn't measure my double wall rigid but it should fit down a 7" x 7" or larger, depending on how straight and true the old flue is, and if there are hugs blobs of mortar ooze, it may take some work. The flex with insulation would be best at 8" x 8" or larger. Once he gets to the top of the old chimney he can go with the class A, which if he uses the double wall class A, that I think is 8" outside diameter, forget what the triple wall is. Maybe 10"?
+1 Somebody's got their thinking cap on.
 
TODJ2002 said:
Hogwildz said:
You could always remove the bad section of chimney and build a chase off of that and lust reline down through the old chimney with class A through the chase. If the remaining brick is in good shape, later when ya have extra cash, you could put stone veneer over the brick and the chase to make everything look the same. Just an idea.

the chimney runs thru the roof down thru the center of the house. so if I decide to do this I will tear chimny down to the roof ridge and not rebuild that portion. I am not going to use pipe insulation either since the chimney is not exposed to the elements. alot of money to get this project completed so maybe this year I will work on gettin the chimney safe and do more insulation, and the following year I will install the wood furnace. also by that time I will prob have enough wood cut to heat the house for a few winters. that would be nice.

If the existing chimney does not have a liner already such as clay or such, and it just brick, you will have to line & it to meet code, same goes for the insulation around the liner, to meet code.
If it has clay tiles already and they are damaged, cracked or unsound, again, the new liner will have to be insulated to meet code.
The whole reason you are doing the job is to be more safe, meet code, and pass inspection, if there is not original liner inside the brick, or if there is and it is in bad shape, and you don't insulate, your defeating the purpose.
Save the cash, do the research and do it right the first time. Insulation is not always specifically for exterior chimneys, it also helps meet the code in many instances.
Good luck in whatever you do.
 
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