Damaged clay liner in my chimney. What to do?

[Dmitry]

I have chimney with 3 clay runs in it. First one is the smaller one and in perfect condition. It used for oil furnace. Second one is bigger and I use it for insulated double wall liner with my insert. It saw couple cracks when I've installed the liner but nothing too scary. The third one is the biggest one and was heavily used for heating the house from the basement with smoke dragon by previous owner.Not using it now. Stuffed some insulation in it and put block plate on a top. When I cleaned my liner this year I've decided to inspect it and I found it falling apart. I can pull those sections out with bare hands . The section on top of the chimney is holding , but the rest..
I plan to use it one day for insulated liner for basement stove (may be) . Do I need to do anything with it now or just let it be? The second question is: Why did it happened?


Pictures in next post

 

[Dmitry]

Here

 

[JA600L]

Is it possible that moisture got behind the liner and froze?

 

[Dmitry]

From what I see there is several inches gap between clay sections and brick from inside . may be water got from the top opening . I think it never had a cap on it. But why is the other two liners in OK condition and this one falls apart? the exposure is about the same.

 

[bholler]

From what I see there is several inches gap between clay sections and brick from inside . may be water got from the top opening . I think it never had a cap on it. But why is the other two liners in OK condition and this one falls apart? the exposure is about the same.

That gap is supposed to be there. The two other liners are ok because they had not had multiple chimney fires that cracked the liners up badly.

I plan to use it one day for insulated liner for basement stove (may be) . Do I need to do anything with it now or just let it be?

Nothing to be done now but when you want to put a liner in there I would say you will need a pro to get that old liner out.
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[Dmitry]

That gap is supposed to be there. The two other liners are ok because they had not had multiple chimney fires that cracked the liners up badly.


Nothing to be done now but when you want to put a liner in there I would say you will need a pro to get that old liner out.
.

That's good to hear. The liner is all black and it has a lot of creosote in lower part of it and on smoke shelf.

If I'm not going to have clay liner anymore what is gonna support my new SS liner when installed?

 

[ccmac]

The top plate supports your liner not the clay flue.