Hello everyone,
I recently bought a home that has some chimney issues and I'm looking for some advice on what to do next. The chimney is 16" square block single clay liner in the center of the house and goes through the roof at the ridge (it runs through a framed and finished chase in the main level). Home is a ranch with a walkout basement. The walkout basement is finished living space which is where the wood burner currently is. Previous owners had an oil furnace and the chimney exhausting in the same flue which was bad. Oil furnace has been replaced with a high efficiency furnace PVC vented through the side of the house. I'm planning to use only the wood stove (Century Hearth model FW240007 w/ 6" pipe) in the chimney.
Inspection of the chimney revealed large cracks in the clay liner. Local contractor that does stainless liners said I need a minimum of 7" for the liner to fit and that I would need to have the clay liner removed to achieve that (they no longer remove them). I hired the only company I could find to remove the clay liner, they stopped after the first few blocks because the clay tiles are fully mortared in to the outer block and the pressure from the tool is destroying the chimney block. Explanation was since some of the outer blocks are cracked and the clay tiles are essentially "glued" to them it will end up destroying the rest of the chimney if they continued. They said the only options would be to demolish and remove the existing chimney and replace it with a new one or see if a custom liner would fit with the clay liner after the top blocks are replaced. However, some of the tiles are offset you can see in the pictures which may make that not even an option.
Which brings me to my question, is there a better option such as a stainless insulated stove pipe instead of a chimney that could be ran in that framed in chase to the roof after the chimney is removed or is chimney replacement the only option for that type of distance of 2 stories? The two places I've been in contact are just masonry and do not do that type of stove pipe. I'm still searching for someone that does that type of pipe but was hoping someone might know if that's even a viable option and pros/cons for both?
Thank you!
I recently bought a home that has some chimney issues and I'm looking for some advice on what to do next. The chimney is 16" square block single clay liner in the center of the house and goes through the roof at the ridge (it runs through a framed and finished chase in the main level). Home is a ranch with a walkout basement. The walkout basement is finished living space which is where the wood burner currently is. Previous owners had an oil furnace and the chimney exhausting in the same flue which was bad. Oil furnace has been replaced with a high efficiency furnace PVC vented through the side of the house. I'm planning to use only the wood stove (Century Hearth model FW240007 w/ 6" pipe) in the chimney.
Inspection of the chimney revealed large cracks in the clay liner. Local contractor that does stainless liners said I need a minimum of 7" for the liner to fit and that I would need to have the clay liner removed to achieve that (they no longer remove them). I hired the only company I could find to remove the clay liner, they stopped after the first few blocks because the clay tiles are fully mortared in to the outer block and the pressure from the tool is destroying the chimney block. Explanation was since some of the outer blocks are cracked and the clay tiles are essentially "glued" to them it will end up destroying the rest of the chimney if they continued. They said the only options would be to demolish and remove the existing chimney and replace it with a new one or see if a custom liner would fit with the clay liner after the top blocks are replaced. However, some of the tiles are offset you can see in the pictures which may make that not even an option.
Which brings me to my question, is there a better option such as a stainless insulated stove pipe instead of a chimney that could be ran in that framed in chase to the roof after the chimney is removed or is chimney replacement the only option for that type of distance of 2 stories? The two places I've been in contact are just masonry and do not do that type of stove pipe. I'm still searching for someone that does that type of pipe but was hoping someone might know if that's even a viable option and pros/cons for both?
Thank you!
