After waiting 5 weeks, I finally got my appointment with a chimney sweep today. Hooray, I thought: no more worrying about whatever creosote my be lurking up in the upper recesses of my chimney.
However, the sweep said that I really should reline my chimney with a stainless steel liner. And that wasn't all. Since the 6" collar coming out of the back of my Jotul F400 goes through a 5" thimble into the chimney, he said that I needed (not should, but needed) to expand the thimble to 6". And -- here's the kicker -- the new 6" pipe wouldn't fit in the existing clay lined flue, so the existing flue tiles would have to all be removed before the stainless steel liner could be put in.
The proposed cost? "Three thousand, maybe three and a half thousand."
Obviously I'm not going to do it. But one thing about it did worry me a little -- reducing the pipe from 6" to 5" for the thimble. So I'm asking the group wisdom -- is reducing the pipe size through the thimble an issue or a risk?
However, the sweep said that I really should reline my chimney with a stainless steel liner. And that wasn't all. Since the 6" collar coming out of the back of my Jotul F400 goes through a 5" thimble into the chimney, he said that I needed (not should, but needed) to expand the thimble to 6". And -- here's the kicker -- the new 6" pipe wouldn't fit in the existing clay lined flue, so the existing flue tiles would have to all be removed before the stainless steel liner could be put in.
The proposed cost? "Three thousand, maybe three and a half thousand."
Obviously I'm not going to do it. But one thing about it did worry me a little -- reducing the pipe from 6" to 5" for the thimble. So I'm asking the group wisdom -- is reducing the pipe size through the thimble an issue or a risk?