How often to do a thorough chimney inspection / liner replacement?

[NoGoodAtScreenNames]

Hi. I have a 10 year old uninsulated liner that the stove shop installed when we bought our insert. I generally clean with a sooteater once or twice a year depending on our use. Every few years I like to have a sweep out, but they generally just do a regular cleaning and look up the liner from the bottom. So not much different than what I do, but they know what they are looking at. There’s an offset so you can really only see the first couple of feet. It’s 32’ from the stove and closer to 40 from a ladder to look from the top down thats not an easy thing to do. Though there are a few bricks that need repointing so a trip up a ladder may be in their future anyway.

How often would you recommend to pay the extra to run a camera up to get a real look? I’m sure there’s a lot of variability in how long liners last, but 10 years seems like a good inflection point to see. I’d like to get an ovalized insulated liner when it does come time. The liner sits in a 7x11 flue.

Thanks.

 

[bholler]

If it's light wall I would start checking it at 10 years

 

[NoGoodAtScreenNames]

If it's light wall I would start checking it at 10 years

Thanks. What are some things to look out for when they check it? Is the liner good until it’s not or are there things they could find that a repair or watch and see approach is appropriate for?

 

[bholler]

Thanks. What are some things to look out for when they check it? Is the liner good until it’s not or are there things they could find that a repair or watch and see approach is appropriate for?

Pretty much the only way to check is with a camera and when it's done it's done

 

[NoGoodAtScreenNames]

I may try to go another season. I had someone out to look at some masonry repairs and it was estimated over 10k to rebuild from the roof line up and do spot fixes throughout. My chimney is tall and not easily accessible - would need scaffolding. We didn’t do a cleaning / camera inspection since the masonry seems more of a concern. But he said a typical reline including breaking out tiles is 8k. That’s a lot to take in all at once. Might think about getting different estimates in the spring when we may be out of high season demand pricing. That’s a lot of dough compared to just shutting down the stove and running the heat pump.