"ransley" wrote in message
...
On Apr 17, 7:59 am, WPB wrote:
Hello, all: I'd be grateful if someone could give me some advice on two
points.

1. Last autumn I had a chimney cleaner come over and he told me that I
needed a steel liner in my chimney (to the tune of $2,500). My house is
older--about 65 years old. He told me that I was taking a real risk.
Other people have told me that a chimney liner is completely unnecessary
and a waste of money. Opinions?

2. The bricks in the "floor" of my chimney are all loose. That's bad.
But one guy quoted me $175 to repair them (get them all locked into place
and safe) and another guy quoted me $1,400 to $4,000. Quite the
difference! Who should I believe?

Many thanks!

David in Toronto

Someone has to look inside the chimney to see what is going on and if
a liner is needed. If loose you mean you can move them then its bad.
175 , if he removes them , cleans and remortars them then ok, if he is
just pushing in a 1/4" of mortar than no. Not knowing how many and how
bad who can say. The 175 is probably a handyman doing it in a day he
figures, but he may not understand how bad it really is. 1400-4000 may
be the other extreme. You need more bids and to learn what is really
going on. Get a guy to look in the chimney and photograph the issues,
get bids.

Unfortunately around here you need to pay at least $75 for an inspection (or
$125 for a clean and inspect) before a mason will quote any required
repairs. Kind of quells the urge to get quotes from more than a few. But
like the other poster said, a chimny sweep may not be qualified to evaluate
borderline repairs, need to quote from the company that will be doing the
repairs.

Among other things, if the mortar inside the chimny is as bad as the outside
(implied by the need to repair some loose bricks) then the liner is
advisable, cracked bricks may or may not be an issue. A cheaper cosmetic
fix may be suitable for a few years but maybe you want a fix to last
decades. If you can see smoke leaking from any part of the chimny, a liner
is required.

Your city may have something to say as well, they may have limits to how
much repointing is allowed before rebuilding parts are necessary.