Do I need a stainless steel liner for my chimney?

McGiever · By: **McGiever** On: Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:16 pm

mmcoal wrote:
Berlin wrote:12x12 is not ideal, but tell us more. is this an interior or exterior stack? is this stack higher than the highest portion of the home? higher than the highest interior space? what is the overall height from fireplace to crown? pictures help. 12/12 may or may not be a problem based on these other factors. Large flues got a bad rap because in the 50's builders started building stacks on the exterior of the home and built them short, typically on the family room "additions"; this lead to a host of problems expecially when someone slammed a fischer insert into them. with coal and a proper chimney a lot of the oversize flue concerns don't apply. I'm not a fan of making the opening at the top smaller, in my opinion this doesn't help anything and may lead to potentially dangerous problems. tell us more about your stack.

This is an exterior chimney about 20' high. Being an older house the chimney wasn't built quite as tall as it should be, but is actually taller than the peak of the roof.

In keeping w/ NOT using a Stainless Steel Liner solution...this video shows a very clever method to end up w/ a clay liner, provided it is large enough to accommodate proper size liner and it is a straight chimney run. This is way more economical than any S.S. liner, easily done by the DIY'er and will last forever.

mmcoal · By: **mmcoal** On: Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:15 pm

Thanks for the info and video. Being a mason, rebuilding the chimney isn't a big deal for me, but I want to be able to get by until I gather enough funds to rebuild the chimney plus giving me enough time to see how the insert works out also.

Berlin · By: **Berlin** On: Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:55 pm

If you're just looking to get by for a while, I'd just slam it in and see how it works for you. If it was an interior stack that was 3' higher than the peak and was 25' high it would probably work very well as is. with a larger flue size it will probably still work fine, but you may not have very strong draft when it gets warm outside.

jrn8265 · By: **jrn8265** On: Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:49 am

I have a 8 year old 5" inch 316TI stainless steel liner.

I have been burning Anthracite coal now for 4 years, oil for 4 previous years.

As long as you have a good rain cap, no water leaks around the liner and clean out the fly ash throughout the liner with a brush and vacume once a year the liner will last many many years, perhaps 20!

In four years of burning coal my liner looks the same as it had 4 years ago.

I'm On Fire · By: **I'm On Fire** On: Sun Jun 03, 2012 8:27 pm

That video was awesome.

I always thought you had to cement the clay liner together. It'd be cool to do that to my chimney when the SS liner fails. If I need to do it. Which I doubt, I'd only need a new throat plate and that's it.

franco b · By: **franco b** On: Wed Jun 06, 2012 9:08 pm

I'm On Fire wrote:I always thought you had to cement the clay liner together.

You do normally, but those clay sections had tongue and groove on the ends so they fit and aligned themselves for a tight fit in the joints.

2001Sierra · By: **2001Sierra** On: Wed Jun 06, 2012 10:21 pm

I would skim the joints with refractory cement, just to be on the safe side. Butter the bottom end of the tile before lowering, or the the top of the one being lowered.

Berlin · By: **Berlin** On: Thu Jun 07, 2012 2:26 am

yup, just butter the bottom of the tile you will be sliding down with a very carefully applied, thick, (non-premixed) high temp mortar. if it has ship-lap joints (male/female ends) you don't want to butter it as much because you want it overlap.

I'm On Fire · By: **I'm On Fire** On: Mon Jul 02, 2012 3:38 pm

I'll be embarking on making my chimney taller...well one terracotta section taller at least in a few weeks. Only problem I foresee is that the top most terracotta flue pipe in my chimney has some slight water damage and is chipped at the top. When I ran the liner down the chimney I chipped what pieces were going to break apart away. But then again, it is at the top of the chimney so I can't see it making that huge of a difference if the last flue pipe section is messed up or not. When I put the new piece on I was going to cement it in place anyway. I'll take pics before anything is done anyway and post them here for analysis.

kstills · By: **kstills** On: Mon Aug 06, 2012 10:57 am

Just to re-cap what I've been reading here, when burning coal an unlined masonry chimney should work fine, and the coal ash even if it gets wet will not rot out the mortar between the bricks.

This would be accurate?

Berlin · By: **Berlin** On: Mon Aug 06, 2012 7:25 pm

kstills wrote:Just to re-cap what I've been reading here, when burning coal an unlined masonry chimney should work fine, and the coal ash even if it gets wet will not rot out the mortar between the bricks.

This would be accurate?

No, it will, but it will take more than a lifetime to do it. As long as the flue gasses don't contain a lot of moisture (which they don't with coal) it is a VERY VERY slow process. Any flue gas venting system will deteriorate, stainless will do it in less than five years and masonry (lined or unlined) will do it in over one hundred, which do you want?

freetown fred · By: **freetown fred** On: Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:17 pm

I think Berlin was trying to say--YES, that would be accurate :clap:

kstills · By: **kstills** On: Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:02 pm

Berlin wrote:
kstills wrote:Just to re-cap what I've been reading here, when burning coal an unlined masonry chimney should work fine, and the coal ash even if it gets wet will not rot out the mortar between the bricks.

This would be accurate?

No, it will, but it will take more than a lifetime to do it. As long as the flue gasses don't contain a lot of moisture (which they don't with coal) it is a VERY VERY slow process. Any flue gas venting system will deteriorate, stainless will do it in less than five years and masonry (lined or unlined) will do it in over one hundred, which do you want?

Well, given that I have less then a lifetime left to burn coal....

nortcan · By: **nortcan** On: Sat Apr 13, 2013 2:12 pm

Thanks for the video. Just would be nice to be able to dropt these liners in a SS 6" chiney.

Do I need a stainless steel liner for my chimney?

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