is this the end of my dream

teeni

I have been checking out this forum for weeks and weeks as i tried to pursuade my other half to let me have a wood burner in the lounge.

We have lived in this house for 25 years and never had the chimney swept as we had central heating and although it was not boarded up it was just for decoration.

Anyway hubby said ok lets go for it, get the chimney swept and get a quote from the sweep whilst he is here.

I spent weeks researching the ideal stove and now I thank God I didnt buy it.

The Sweep turned up today and started to sweep thud, a birds nest, then thud thud thud as down came several more nests, half a ton of earth and several stones from the inside of the chimney. (House is old stone built in the 1890's)

Work stopped in the hope that no more would fall,and apart from further earth and a few more twigs ( even more bloody birds nests) no more has fallen. ( Builder coming tomorrow to have a look and make sure no serious damage just a few stones)

The sweep said he could clear the rest from the top and then put a liner in but i am terrified that to clear anything else will result in the chimney collapsing completely and i need to check if my house insurance covers that before any more work is carried out.

Hubby now has changed his mind and said he will not risk the whole pine end collapsing just to satisfy my need to be trendy and I can just forget it.

Is it possible to clear the chimney from the top and is it less risky than sweeping it in the normal way OR should i just leave well alone and be grateful i still have a complete house tonight.

welda

Of course it is possible to clean from top, I do it this way, top>down. As for debris falling, for an old house, I would say this is par for the course, my hoose if over 250 yo, three flu's in gable end where stove smoke is jettisoned, breach in flu I use for stove, lined it, no probs since install 3 year ago.

Your call, but I wouldn't let debris put me off, yes of course call in an expert though, let him assess the situation, that said, to do a thorough job, see if you can get a company to drop a cctv cam down the flu, I did this with a neighbour who also had a chimney breach, breach was too bad to open up, and use fireplace, we would never have known this without use of drop vid cam!

Regards..............

Greenfires

Have you more than one fireplace on that wall? Upstairs or in an adjoining room? Several chimney pots up top? Do the outside and inside walls appear to be sound in the vicinity of the chimney?

Personally I'd want to carry on - blocked chimneys full of nests and garbage can often harbour damp and sometimes let it through to the inside of the house as there'll be no ventilation through it if it's blocked. If there is more than one flue there, chances are it's probably the mid feathers have broken down somewhere up the chimney. Being blocked up and quite possibly damp won't be helping the situation with the internal mortar either.

I'd get the sweep to finish it, get a liner in and get the stove on - the heat in the chimney will help dry it out too. A disused and unventilated chimney isn't going to be doing you any favours at all.

Andy

welda

Out of pure curiousity, Andy, what are feathers and, apart from a smoke test, how do sweeps, or a builder assess inner condition of a chimney?

When I mention video cam in my previous post, which I used to use when inspecting inside condition of large dia pipe, this allowed us to see a large stone, block chimney of proposed flu to be used for new fire, impossible to line.

Regards......

teeni

Thanks , I am of the opinion that it is better to carry on, the chimney goes from the lounge up through where there was once a fireplace in the bedroom and there is another chimney in the back room which goes up the same wall adjacent to this one, 2 chimneys covering four fireplaces .

The sweep went into the attic and said that there is no obvious damage up there and he had said to let him know what we decide, he did a smoke test and said there was a draw and the smoke was coming out of the correct chimney but escaping in to the attic space as well

I have checked with the insurance company since i first posted and as we have accidental damage on buildings insurance they said it is covered if anything dramatic happens.

I am having it checked as i said tomorrow by a builder and he when i spoke to him he suggested having his colleague check out the interior with a camera to see exactly what has happened in there, but woudl make that decision after he has seen for himself as the sweep he uses is very busy especially at this time of the year. The sweep I used doesnt have a camera so couldnt offer that service.

We have calmed down a bit now, hubby got a bit stressed when he came home to find 10 black bags of debris being carted away and the cold draught in the living room tonight from the chimney area is like nothing i ever felt before, hubby has suggested that the last fall may have actually cleared the bloody thing and fear stopped us from finding out.

Any way tomorrow is another day and we will know one way or another.

Fingers crossed that this is only a hick up and we will get the stove we want before the really cold weather arrives.

Greenfires

The mid feathers are the brick, or stonework that keep the flues from different fireplaces separate mate. Brick built flues often only have one layer of brick between the different flueways.

Fireplaces should all have their own passage up the chimney - those coming from the ground floor often go around those on upper floors and then they come together - or next to each other rather, in the same stack on the roof, but all should have their own pot and their own flue.

Many sweeps have cameras these days - though they generally work from the fireplace up, than from the roof down. These will show up any major problems such as collapsed feathers etc. Smoke testing properly is a two man job - one on the roof and one in the fireplace. Just lighting a pellet in the fireplace will only demonstrate a draught in most cases. A proper smoke test relies on completely sealing the top and bottom of the flue, and allowing the smoke to pressurise the chimney as it's generated. The smoke is then forced out of any gaps or cracks that the camera may not have picked up.

You can also get an idea of the general overall condition of a chimney by what comes down when you sweep it, and whether it's dry or damp or dirty etc.

Hope that helps!

Andy

teeni

ah perhaps we have four chimneys then, all i know is that it is th epine end wall and ther was a fire place in the bedroom of the 2 upstairs rooms and the 2 downstairs rooms, there is only 2 chimney pots though.

The sweep didnt go on the roof at all today just checked from the ground and in the attic, all the dirt that came down the chimney was dry earth like substance and loads and loads of twigs and 5 or 6 stones.

I will take the builder up on getting his friend out to check the chimney out. do you think the fact that there is a bloody huge draft coming down the chimney now is a good sign?

A._Badger

It's impossible for someone to diagnose remotely via a forum posting but one thought I'd suggest is that your house was designed to have a chimney and for that chimney to facilitate a flow of ventilation through the house.

In my opinion (and I admit I am not a surveyor) many older houses suffer greatly from modern owners trying to make them airtight - it's asking for damp problems!

I'd imagine that once your sweep and a builder have sorted out your problems, your house will be a nicer environment to live in as a consequence. For it to have a living fire would make it even better!

highrisklowreturn

It's a good sign you're feeling the cold down your chimney. Before I had my stove in, such as last Winter, my entire living room was freezing. I had my inglenook and the chimney pipe came the whole way into it, unsealed, and I could hear the wind roaring through it. Even having the stove plugged in there has noticeably raised the temperature in my living room, where last Winter it was utterly baltic.

welda

Greenfires wrote: »

Hope that helps!

Andy

It definitely does..............

Thanks...........

Ben84

A._Badger wrote: »

It's impossible for someone to diagnose remotely via a forum posting but one thought I'd suggest is that your house was designed to have a chimney and for that chimney to facilitate a flow of ventilation through the house.

In my opinion (and I admit I am not a surveyor) many older houses suffer greatly from modern owners trying to make them airtight - it's asking for damp problems!

I'd imagine that once your sweep and a builder have sorted out your problems, your house will be a nicer environment to live in as a consequence. For it to have a living fire would make it even better!

I actually think excessive air leakage and open fires which tend to cause it are more likely to be making a house damp than drying it out. We've removed all the open fires in our house then bricked and plastered over. The rooms that previously had fireplaces are much warmer and drier than before. I'm sure it's the ability to heat the rooms better that is helping. Cold and damp tend to go together as the colder air is the less water vapour it holds, so the more condensation you get inside the house. My rooms with fireplaces were always the wet ones through being the colder ones. Large volumes of cold outside air entering the chimney may be doing less to dry the house out and just making the room cold forcing the water in the air to condense out on walls and windows.

You have to get the balance right though, you need some air flow in a house to keep the air fresh and dispose of some of the water vapour, but having so much it makes the house hard to heat or makes certain rooms significantly colder will certainly cause dampness too. I've lived in a house full of air leaks, open fires in every room and warped crittal windows you could stick bits of paper through without opening them and the place was anything but dry. It was soaking wet from condensation as the constantly cold air in the house could hold so little moisture in just condensed out all over the walls and windows. There must be some optimum between letting the air exchange between inside and outside but not having it so great that the house is hard to heat as you also need the heat to prevent condensation.