Chimney Liner: Should I Rush this?

[mnowaczyk]

I schedule to have a tree company bring a 75 foot crane to take down a ~90 year old Ginko that’s attacking my house. This is scheduled for December 1, less than 3 weeks away. And my chimney is pretty inaccessible up top. Here are a few shots. The natrual gas boiler is on the left with a liner for that purpose. The square cap is a spring loaded open fireplace with just a 13” square clay liner for the open fireplace. Open fires are nice, but I think it might be nicer to squeeze in a wood stove or at least a fireplace insert. I also would really like to put a wood stove in the basement where the current natural gas boiler is hooked up. I have a new high efficiency combo boiler+water heater I hope to install soon, freeing up the front chimney. So I wonder if I should rush to buy two chimney liners and get them dropped in while the crane will be here taking the tree down.

I am not the type of guy to pay someone $3000-5000 to install a chimney liners, more like the type of guy that would buy one and drop it in myself, even if it means strapping myself to a rope up on a ladder and paying a daring friend to do the same. I am not really ready for this. So MAYBE I could delay taking the tree down. But would really like to do it this year.

Shot of chimney before the rebuild below:

 

[gthomas785]

Are the tree guys willing to do chimney work for free? If not how do you envision the crane helping with this.
I Would not want to climb what looks like a slate gambrel roof on a ladder. If I were installing that liner myself I would rent a boom lift.

 

[GG Woody]

I have never had a chimney liner install go nearly as easy as I would expect and I do sheet metal work for a living. Chimney liners seem to take at least 10 times longer than I would think. 20mins X 10 maybe. Would that leave your house temporarily without heat?
Your mileage will almost certainly vary...

 

[mnowaczyk]

Thanks guys. I rented a spider lift for $4000 to work on the roof and chimney. I think that even a week would cost me $2000, and a day $1000. I guess I should probably just plan on collecting a bunch of work for my next round of high work, as this is not urgent. Yeah, I would love to have the house ready for wood heat, but I will accept that is not happening this year.

A liner into the fireplace flue would likely be easy with 13” x 13” clay liner already in there, but as mentioned, the tree guys surely won’t let me up on their lift or be interested in doing any of that work. I might ask anyway. Not sure I could even get a liner here in time anyway.

We have all this landscaping in the front yard that would likely get trashed with smaller or reasonably sized equipment. The 75’+ crane that is coming will be parking in the street.