To line or not to line, that is the question.

[scooby1]

I have a 9 year old house and the lounge has a chimney lined with either 6" or 9" clay pipes (can't remember what the builder told me).

There is an open fire in there at the moment but I propose to install a woodburner. Do I have to "re-line" with s/steel or any other sort of liner. This is on a farm and I have masses of wood. I have been burning wood for years in a multi-fuel cooker in another farm house and that chimney didn't have have a lining of any sort.

Is this "liner" thing just scaremongering or is there a valid reason for fitting them ?

TIA - Scooby

 

[Fluffster]

Have a read here it explains all.
Pete

http://www.nef.org.uk/logpile/woodfuel/chimneys.htm

 

[scooby1]

Thanks very much for that Pete. I suppose that I am really asking if I need to "re-line" my existing 9 year old chimney that is already lined with the requiiste clay liner pipes. I presume that they are deemed to be perfectly O.K. for our open fire upon which we burn timber from the farm so what is the difference when we install a woodburner ?


It seems a shame if I have to shove a steel liner down an existing perfectly good chimney.

David.

 

[Fluffster]

Do smoke test to ensure it is tight. If it is only 9 yrs old should be in reasonable good nick.
Liners are more important when you use them as a flue to vent gas combustion gases, still it is nice not to have all your clothes and the fabric of the building smelling like you have just come home from a camping trip
Pete

 

[bernardgreen]

I think the practicallity is that it is far easier to connect the spigot ( flue connection ) of the wood burning stove to a tube of metal of the matching diameter than to get an effective seal between the spigot and a much larger opening as the base of the chimney.

An attempt to seal the spigot to a large open chimney stack in a cottage ended up a year or later with smouldering soot burning through and dropping into the ingle nook fire place.