Tips for installing a liner from the bottom up?

[pulldownclaw]

I am having major trouble getting my liner to go down my flue, due to a sharp turn down towards the bottom of my corner chimney. I am thinking of trying it from the bottom up this weekend, thinking it might be easier to negotiate the turn pushing from the bottom. Any tips?

 

[Jfigliuolo]

I'd be carefull of that SS liner beating the $%^# out of the inside of ny house. When you start twisting that thing it might get ugly.

 

[swestall]

Rigid or flex>? Different techniques for either.

 

[eba1225]

Pulldown,

You are experiencing the exact problem that I had in installing my liner. I tried to go down from the top but with me on the roof and the wife down below it just wasn't moving (she could not pull it enough to get it past the bend in the flue).

One question before I go down what I did, can you get access to the top of the chimney?


I wound up installing it from the bottom up.
First of all clear everything out from in front of the fireplace to make room for the liner.
I cut the top 6" of the liiner to make a point (you can buy attachments that fit on the end of the liner that allow for pulling - I believe thay are called a pull cap).
Drill holes near the tip of the make shift cap to accept wire connector.
I then fascened a piece of wire to the make shift cap and then attached a rope to the wire.
As I was doing this basically myself I rigged a pulley system that allowed me to stay on the ground and pull* the liner up the chimney.
I then would go into the house and push the liner up the chimney while it was being pulled up the chimney from the outside.
There were times where I thought I would be stuck with a liner in my house.
It took about 3 hours to get the liner up the chimney due to the bend in the chimney as well as sloppy joints for the terracotta liner.

It took alot of elbow greese and frustration.

* Pull - Used my extension ladder with a length of 2x4 attached to create a crane looking device which was above the flue by 3 ft., to which I attached a pulley through which the rope went through to get down to me on the ground. In order to maintain a constant pull on the rope I used 2 rubber bungie cords (like the kind you see on trucks) to pull the rope. There was a pretty heavy tension on the rope. The bungies cords were stretched to their limit.

Erik

 

[pulldownclaw]

Flex, but I didn't realize what "flex" meant until I tried to straighten that puppy out! :grrr:

 

[pulldownclaw]

Dang, Erik, makes me feel better there's other people out there who went through some of the same frustration. This thing has been a sonofagun. I can access the top of my chimney, which is where I've been trying to install from, but it is just not making the turn. I have fashioned a pulling cone much like the one you made, I even cut the last 18 inches or so of it to make it more tapered. I'm hoping from the bottom I can help it up bit by bit around the turn while somebody's (that would be me) pulling from the top. Thanks for the tips.

 

[granpajohn]

...As I was doing this basically myself I rigged a pulley system that allowed me to stay on the ground and pull* the liner up the chimney.
I then would go into the house and push the liner up the chimney while it was being pulled up the chimney from the outside.
There were times where I thought I would be stuck with a liner in my house.
It took about 3 hours to get the liner up the chimney due to the bend in the chimney as well as sloppy joints for the terracotta liner.

Erik

I hope no one will mind if I take this moment to say that Erik appears to be a genius. And persistant.

 

[eba1225]

How about stubborn Engineer.

Pulldown,
Good luck with that pulling up but I unfortunately was not able to make mine go with only one mode of force (push or pull). Once I got the pulley thing going it made a BIG difference, in that it was actually moving.

 

[JimWalshin845]

Great ideas Erik gave. One question as per the rope you attached, why didn't you run both ends of the rope down the flue? or the loose end through the chimney liner itself?

 

[eba1225]

Didn't occur to run the rope back down the flue. Couldn't run it down the liner as it was closed to allow for the attachment of the other end of the wire and rope.

 

[rg500930]

dont know if your chimney is the same.but i have a outside chimney the at the bottom it goes at a 45 degree angle down into the basement.luckly were the bend is at the bottom of the chimney there is a clean out trap so i could guide it easier from the outside flu to the one going into the basement.what i found was were that bend is the ridges in the liner were getting stuck on the flu were th 45 degree is.so i put something flat like a flat piece of hard plastic at that corner.and with me pushing down from the roof and someone pulling from the bottom it went right in.just make sure he doesnt pull from the bottom to hard.you dont want to kink the liner.

 

[pulldownclaw]

Thanks, I wish to high heaven I had a cleanout door, that would simplify things. I took a look again tonight at the twists and turns the flue takes upon leaving the fireplace and I'm not sure it will go up that way either, but it's the only other idea I've got going right now. Unless it's a 20'/6" straight piece attatched to a 5'/5" piece, back out to a 5" to 6" adaptor to the top of my stove. %-P

 

[JimWalshin845]

LOL... can you wait till the 25th of December? I think a extra helping hand would just bring it down the chimney for ya!

 

[swestall]

http://chimneylinerinc.com/red_chimney.htm
I recently saw a diagram of an installation where they used rigid to flex to rigid to get by such a problem, Perhaps someone could help you design such a solution.