Woodburners, installation and conflicting advice!

highrisklowreturn

You can do it yourself of course and just not bother telling them - who's to know? The only risk is if your house burns down - your insurers won't pay out. Personally I had mine installed as I would have been too crap at doing this type of thing; although having watched my installer do it I'm convinced, for similar chimney dimensions as mine, it would be a piece of cake. You only need stove pipe, fire rope and fire cement, each of which costs buttons.

Greenfires

Caitlin - are you in England? If so, then the local building control officer at the council is the man to sign off the job once you've done it. As hr says - there could be problems with the insurance if there are any problems further down the line.

Cheers,

Andy

kats53

Had a builder round for a quote, he wants £2200 to make the opening in the chimney breast bigger, fit liner etc. check chimney, install stove and hearth and plaster chimney breast. We provide the tiles for the hearth and he will tile it.
Do you think this is a fair quote? I am still going to try and get another quote before deciding.

highrisklowreturn

10 times what I paid.

Ask:

1) Why does it need lined - is the clay lining poor, degraded or insufficient? If not, no lining required.
2) Why does it need widened? Hetas regs state there must be a gap of minimal distance between stove and walls - is this not big enough at the moment? Can you not buy a stove that is thinner and would fit in without increasing inglenook size?
3) Plastering is simple - do it yourself.
4) Tiling is simple, go down to b n q.

Questions 1 and 2 are the most important. Don't line it if it doesn't need lined. If he argues you need to increase the chimney space to get the heat into the room tell him you're buying an eco fan at 70 quid to do the same job. The heat eventually radiates around the room anyway, it just takes longer the greater the obstructions around the chimney.

kats53

Yeah it needs lined, the house is over 100 years old and there was smoke leaking out of chimney when he did the smoke test. The opening is too small at the moment and OH would have a go at plastering but can't because he is in agony with his back.
Thanks for the advice though, we would probably have a go ourselves if fit enough, but unfortunately not at the moment.
cheers Jen

Sphynx

Sounds expensive to me. I have been quoted £1200 and £1800 for the same work. I don't need a liner so have found someone to install for £550 but would have gone for the £1200 otherwise. Keep trying, someone will do it for less.

welda

kats53 wrote: »

Had a builder round for a quote, he wants £2200 to make the opening in the chimney breast bigger, fit liner etc. check chimney, install stove and hearth and plaster chimney breast. We provide the tiles for the hearth and he will tile it.
Do you think this is a fair quote? I am still going to try and get another quote before deciding.

Ouch, that does sound a tad dear!! What are your fire opening dimensions? My own opening was tight to work around, but was do-able, works a treat, stove sit on hearth, non inglenook, meets regs standards re; dimensions around stove and hearth, basically looks like this below.

liner>| |
Stove> []--|--^ |=vertical register plate.
^<hori flu pipe.

Re; stainless liner, unless you have eyes on stocks, how can you decide if chimney is safe and sound, a good sweep is your best bet to advise on chimney soundness!

I've mentioned this before on here, personally I had to line my chimney (three pots on stack) as chimney to be used for stove was breached, meaning, did a smoke test, smoke from pellet low as it exited top of stack, bedroom above, which has fireplace closed off, and vented, full of pellet smoke. So obviously no choice but to line. But I can actually see the wisdom of lining, IF there were a chimney fire way down the road after initial install, flame is contained within SS liner, for me, a small price to pay for piece of mind. Then you have potential tarring problems if no liner is in place, when we are over in France, house next door has ugly tar stains at top of house wall, were stack starts to protrude at eves roof level, not a pretty site I assure you.

HTH?

Regards.........

Oops, my drawing attemp looked fine prior to posting, has moved a little, see what I can do with edit function?

liner>| |
Stove> []--|--^ |=vertical register plate.
^<hori flu pipe.

"sigh" still no good :-(

suki1964

caitlin1bovril wrote: »

We want to fit ours ourselves but are struggling also to find anyone to sign it off.If you dont get it signed off, is it such a big deal? If you sell your house and you don't have the paperwork then surely you just tell them and then they can make up their minds.

The person who sign it off is the man from building control at the council

And you wont have a mission of selling the property without the correct paperwork - the solicitors will make sure of that

highrisklowreturn

If you don't want tar don't get a register plate, simple. The excess heat into the chimney will carry more junk away.

smcqis

about 2000 is the going rate for all the work you need done this is what we need done, including plastering the whole chimney breast and we were quoted 1900 (which includes the 500 pound stove).