Flue liners for a stove

Jennifer1986

We have just purchased a wood burning stove and have had our chimney checked and been told we have to have a flue liner. We were quoted £1500 for a flue liner which we thought was excessive.

Does anybody know where we can get a flue liner?

we have found a website that sells them but we are not sure if we should trust it.

Thank you

Greying_Pilgrim

Jennifer1986 although this is not a specific answer to the question you posed, we have a wood burning stove and flue liner fitted and I would just like to point out that a flue liner has to be fitted in either of 2 ways (well, possibly 3) you either have to have it fitted by a HETAS qualified engineer or you have it fitted by a builder/roofer and then have to pay to have the building control inspector round (the possible 3rd way is if your builder/roofer has hetas status - which some do if they carry out alot of this type of work). When we had ours the cost of the building inspector was going to be in the region of £200-300. If you don't have it fitted this way, it may (not too sure about this but think) mean your home insurance, in the event of a claim may be compromised, and I was told (again, can't hold hand on heart and say it's absolutely true) that you have to have some evidence of 'correct fitting' if you want to sell your property. we have a little 'certificate' located next to our electricity meter. there is also the matter of safety - stoves have to be flued correctly to be safe.

The flue liner has to be solid fuel quality (gas grade is not good enough). The quote you received does not seem too bad IF you a) live in a 2 storey house b) it is HETAS/planning compliant and c) includes all the fixture and fittings both to the stove and on the top of the chimmney. Oh, and of course, if the contractors are reputable and insured etc etc. But shopping around may shave some 3's off that quote for an equally reputable fit.

HTH

Greying

edit: since we had our flue fitted, steel/metal prices have soared. I expect per metre solid fuel flue lining is pretty expensive stuff these days.

muckybutt

You dont have to have stoves connected to flue liners !

It is recommended that you do but it is not a legal requirement, however having said that as pointed out above if a flue liner is installed it has to be done and passed for building regulations either by a quailfied HETAS engineer or building regs surveyor from your local council.

There are three grades of flue liner theres the 316/316 - 904/316 grade and the 904/904 grade, the latter being the much better quality and the better guarantee 25 years. £1500 for lining the chimney sounds a lot but depending where the fitter gets the liner from he could be paying between £30 - £60 per meter, then theres the flue pipe attatchments and the cowl and roof work, and the back filling etc so by the time hes done these things add up.

A different alternative to having a liner is to get it idependantly inspected say by a sweep who is NACS registered and can do cctv inspection, he'll advise you if it need lining. The alternative to a stainless steel liner is the lightweight concrete pumped in liner that companies such as thermocrete do.

Choice is yours.

http://www.fluesupplies.com/
http://www.flexifluedirect.com/
http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Flexible-Flue-Liners.html

doningtonphil

You dont HAVE to have a lined chimney, and when we bought our multi-fuel stove we thought long and hard about lining or not, were very keen to avoid spending a grand if we didnt need to.

A sweep came and said yep all looks fine, he left us with 1 smoke pellet to light ourselves to watch the smoke go up the chimney!

Here are the reasons we decided to line our chimney:

1) Chimneys would originally have been rendered on the inside to protect the mortar and bricks. In the last 100 years it is likely this has been compramised/fallen off.

2) The volume of the a plain chimney is very high so the gases from the stove would cool quickly, this can lead to soot and tar build up in the chimney requiring more regular cleaning, chimney fire risk and (if render has failed) black tar seeping through brickwork and plaster of chimney breast into interir walls.

The volume of the chimney was OK for an old open fire as 80% of the heat went up the chimney, however only 20-30% of stove heat goes up. By having a samller diameter liner which is back filled with insulation means that the gases have less chance to cool

3) We couldnt be sure of the integrity of the chimney. A few smoke bombs prove nothing. TO check that no gases can escape through cracks would require the chimney to be pressure tested- blocked up and pumped with smoke to see if any escapes. THis all costs money which, along with the council inspector go a fair bit toward the cost of a properly installed liner.

We bought a stove and then a hetas reg guy fitted stove and liner and for approx 1000. This was 2 years ago. Peace of mind also must have some value.

I am not saying what we did was right, people might say what I have based our decision on is *&%@:* but I hope it can be added to the mix as you make a decision you feel comfortable with:)