Help - Removing chimney tile

[newguy08]

Recently purchased a flex liner to reline my fireplace. Thinking we had covered all of the bases with measurements and parts, my buddy & I organized all of the materials and began to insert the liner down the chimney. It appears the builder of the chimney my not have lined the clay tiles up and are not positioned for a smooth transition from one to the next. This is really evident where I have a bend within the chimney, about a 60 to 65 degree angle. Has anyone removed the clay tile and what is involved? I understand there are tile breakers for this but only works on straight vertical chimneys, no bends. Any suggestions?

 

[Todd]

I can tell you how mine were broke out. I have an outside chimney and they took some bricks out from the outside. They worked their way down tile by tile and cleaned out the peices through the hole. I also had a cleanout but they said it was just easier and less messy to do it from the outside. I did ask them how they would do this with an offset and they said we would just make another hole near it so they could make sure they could get at it by hand if the tool didn't work. Mine was a straight shot but had a couple bad offsets, the tool worked very well.

 

[remkel]

I too hired out this job. I had an offset in the chimney. The liner was broken from the top and cleaned out at the bottom. Ended up being a two day job, but that may have been because of the paper wasps awakening in my roof ridge once the sun hit it at 10am.......

 

[Prosecond]

I broke my own 40' chimney out. I thought it wasn't too bad. The tile broke very easy. I made my own breaker out of a 1/2" thick 4x4" square piece of steel. I drilled a hole in the center and just mounted it onto the end of a chimney cleaning rod and spun it with a drill. The fiberglass rods flexed easily around an offset that I had. I would recommend shutting down after breaking each tile and making sure it was removed from the bottom before breaking the next tile. You can break a tile out in just a few seconds.

 

[newguy08]

Prosecond - Did you have any issues with loosening any other stones or blocks within the chimney unit itself? I have some decorative field stone which is on surface of chimney from top to bottom and did not know how much vibration it may cause. Did you start at the top and work down or bottom up?

 

[Prosecond]

My chimney was block with clay liner. I did not damage any of block. I could see where the breaker had impacted the block and made tiny marks on them but it didn't break any. I had to break an openning through the side of the chimney to remove some bricks at the off-set though. I removed those with a chisel and hammer.

Forgot to say you have to remove it top down or the whole thing could colapse.