We have a beautiful brick fireplace with a raised hearth. We can no longer use the chimney because the former owners (my deceased dad) had too many chimney fires and cracked it.

We are considering putting three wal pipe in it and then either putting in a fireplace insert or another wood heater, like he had sitting on the hearth...

Propane costs are getting higher and higher and we have about half our 13 acres in woods so this would seem to be a good thing to do.

Have any of you done this? This an article in one of the handyman magazines that mentions this this month but doesn't go into details.

-- Suzy in 'Bama (slgt@yahool.com), January 01, 2001

Answers

The tinsmith that we use to fix gutters and such told me of using flue pipe to install an insert as you describe. Should work.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), January 01, 2001.

We did it last year to an old chimney that was lined w/ terra cotta {sp} it was alot of work. The lininng pipes come in sections that stack on top of each other, the problem was getting the old ones out! My HB works w/ stone all the time so he figured it out. He craked the bottom 1 by hand w/ a mason tool and reached up as far as he could to break the others ,luckly the others were not cemented well and dropped when the bottom ones were out. watch you arms!!! we then started w/ the bottom one and pushed it up and slid another one under it untill it was to heavey .They sell maybe rent a "hoist"to lower the sections from the top down,we used the type that had a male and female end so they would lock together . It was hard and I would think it maybe cheaper and safer to get a chimney sweep out to do it.I know we will not try it again! what a mess. We still ended up getting a sweep to check the work just to be sure!

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), January 01, 2001.

Suzy, remember that fireplaces waste more heat than they create, unless you are putting a air-tight fireplace insert into the fireplace. Consider changing over to oil heat if you ever have a chance, they put out the most heat for the dollar, and oil prices have basically remained stable ( cause our nations trucks run on the same stuff) for the last 20 years that we have heated with it, and the furnaces are now rivally the best gas ones for efficiency of use. Propane, unless you are using direct vent space ones, is an inefficient heat source for whole house use, not enough BTU's produced for the buck! Just my opinion though.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), January 03, 2001.

Last year, when we were putting in our wood cookstove, we had a chimney sweep come out and check everything over - found out the liner was cracked, unrepairable, and a real mess. The sweep wanted to charge around 500 dollars to clean everything out. We did it ourselves, for nothing but a couple of bruised knuckles, by breaking out all the old liner using long spades and a long pointed metal stick.

We bought the triple wall piping at a great price, and hired a friend to help us put the piping into the chimney. We started with non- triple wall 6 inch stainless steel pipe from the basement up to where the pipe would come through the wall on the first floor. This would allow the ashes to come down to the clean out in the basement.

Then we took the first piece of triple wall, which had a t shape to it - one part of the t going down toward the basement, the other part of the t out through the wall, and then the other part straight up the chimney. The bottom part of the t was reduced from 8 inch to 6 inch to hook to the non-triple wall stainless below. We solidified the triple wall by placing it on a place bolted to the wall that had an 8 inch opening to hold things steady. So one part of the t went down to the nontriple wall pipe, and the other part of the t was even with the wall out into the room. We then started adding pipe from the top of the chimney downward. One piece of pipe would be put down a small way into the chimney, the next part would be added on top, using the screws to hold everything together. We added pieces until it was long enough to rest on the triple wall t and come out the top of the chimney.

We learned new swear words hooking that first t part to the pipe above it. The whole thing rotated, and should have slipped together and fastened easily. It didn't. However we eventually won that fight, too.

On top we put a spark arrestor cap and screen. At the t leading out to the wood stove, we used a reducer from 8 inch triple wall to 6 inch stainless steel, and fitted the pipe onto the stove. We'd already build a huge tile floor and the woodstove backed up against the chimney, so there was no place for a fire to get started.

We used stainless for the non-triple wall part because we burn coal and I didn't want things to burn out fast.

If you have other questions, please feel free to e mail me.

Ann

-- ann zavala (annzavala@Yahoo.com), January 04, 2001.

This is a timely question, as we just had a chimney fire the other day that left our (fireplace with a woodstove hooked up to it) chimney unuseable. We can't afford to heat entirely with oil in this drafty old farmhouse, so need to get the flue repaired/replaced as soon as possible. I think that the fireplace flue is square, though, which might make fitting a metal pipe into it a little tricky? Anyway, I'll have hubby read this when he gets up from his nap! Thanks, Suzy, for bringing this up, as I was going to ask about it myself.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), January 04, 2001.

Hi I'll clarify here a bit, noticed I didn't tell you about the original set up of the chimney - our house was built by7 an old German guy who built a 4 foot squre chimney right in the middle of the house. he built it out of concrete blocks. One sideof the chimney ( 4x2) is for the opening downstairs in the basement for the lower wood stove, and the second half is upstairs, for the main floor wood stove. Everything is square, but we had no trouble at all putting in the round pipes - but we were careful to make sure that the pipes cleared the space easily - even the triple wall cleared and wasn't tight against all the sides. So it can be done!

Good luck.

-- ann zavala (annzavala@yahoo.com), January 06, 2001.

Hi,

We put a triple wall pipe thru our roof. Not in any fireplace. (Or had the heating people do it so our insurance would cover it.) It goes thru the roof, and we use it daily. We heat with a woodstove. The only place we had to use triple wall pipe was in the ceiling and up thru the roof. We have used this for 4 years now and love it. Good luck with the project.

Beth(NC)

-- Beth (NC) (craig@icu2.net), January 07, 2001.

Can I add a little more here? You are absolutely right, most people just use the triple wall stuff to go through any flamable surfaces, like the attic ceiling and such.

But here was our problem - the people who had the house before us didn't care that the liner was broken or that they were putting LOTS of creosote onto the surfaces of the cement blocks that made up the outside of the chimney. So when we broke loose the broken liner and tried to clean off the cement blocks, we discovered it was a losing proposition - there was no way to get all that creosote off.

That left us with the possibility of putting in blue or stainless single wall pipe into the chimney as a new liner, starting up a fire and then having the creosote that had been deposited on the cement blocks catch fire from the heat.

Now, picture this - the creosote is burning outside the chimney pipe, but on the inside surface of the concrete blocks - no way to extinguish the fire, no way to get to it, and if the concrete block happened to break from the heat -- fire right into the house through the breaks. The only solution we could come up with was the triple wall pipe. I'd be curious to know if anyone else could have come up with another answer!

-- ann zavala (annzavala@yahoo.com), January 08, 2001.