Skinny Chimneys

[Srbenda]

I was in southern PA this week, and I noticed many houses had a very skinny chimney.

It was typically on the end of the house, appeared to make of block, and ran a straight line from the ground to above the roof.

No expansion area, or anything like a typical chimney for a fireplace.

Are these for oil furnaces, or something else?

Here's a photo.

 

[summit]

probably a 7x7 flue added on after the house was built. They look kinda tiny.

 

[ecocavalier02]

Looks like a duplex house. could be oil furnace wood. n e thing. lots of house like that aorund here. my neighbor has one like that on his house for his woodstove here.

 

[begreen]

Seems like common sense went out the window and up the chimney when central heating systems were introduced.

 

[jtp10181]

I see those around here a lot also. Probably for B-Vent furnace / boiler or water heater added on before there was this all metal flue available. Most of the ones I see have round clay coming out. Probably 7" or 8". Some might not have any clay, just a block chimney,

Could also be for a wood or oil burning whatever.

Hmmm.... you know what else. I ran into a house in the historic district of a town that had a small flue like that. It was an old Coal flue for a cook stove. It was very narrow inside. Just had a thimble near the ceiling in the kitchen. So they could be for old coal furnaces also (did such a thing exist?). And maybe adapted to gas furnaces when the NG was piped through.

Most of them I would bet are currently venting gas furnaces/ boilers and/or water heaters. Some are probably not being used for anything when the furnace and water heater gets replaced with direct vent models.

 

[jetmech]

They are oil furnace chimneys mostly.. im from south central PA and grew up in a house with same chimney

 

[DanCorcoran]

"So they could be for old coal furnaces also (did such a thing exist?)."

You betcha! That's what the metal doors were for on the side of houses in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Coal was delivered through the door to a chute to the basement. You loaded the coal furnace from the pile in the basement (it fired the boiler for our hot-water radiator system, before the boiler was replaced with a gas-fired unit, which we now use). We've found a few chunks of coal left in various cubbyholes in the basement. The metal door had been welded closed long before we bought the house.

 

[n3pro]

Our rental houses have them, oil furnace.