Recruited a new member and need some chimney tips

[Badfish740]

There's another young couple in the neighborhood that we see from time to time when they're walking the dog, out with the baby, etc...and the first time we met them they mentioned that the house they bought (they moved in a year before we did) had a wood stove. I didn't have my Englander yet but mentioned that I was going to put one in. Fast forward to last weekend I saw the guy out with the dog and my chimney was starting to puff a little smoke (it was getting too hot in the house so my wife turned the air way down) and the conversation turned to burning wood. I asked how his stove was doing and he said in the three years they had been in the house he never used it. It's in his basement and piped into a masonry chimney-there's a grate in the floor above it to let warm air rise to the first floor. He basically said he wasn't sure if it was safe, what the condition of the chimney was, etc...and wasn't sure how much it would cost to get it inspected. I told him I'd be happy to come and take a look at it and also mentioned that he might want to contact one of the sweeps in the local paper depending on what we find. Of course I also told him to get on hearth.com and read up As far as looking over the stove itself and the inside stove pipe I pretty much know what I'm looking for (creosote, door gasket condition, signs of overfiring) but I have a pre-fab chimney, so I don't really know what the inside of a masonry chimney should look like. It's should be lined with clay tile right? Can someone post a pic of a dirty vs. a clean masonry chimney? Anyway, I was glad to bring another member into the fold, but my oil company may get angry with me because I found out he uses the same one :lol: