Dan_Musicant wrote:
My 95 year old house is in need of all manner of major renovations. If I
really go for it and have the foundation replaced the first thing
they'll do is remove the brick siding and stone at the front. This is
necessary if for no other reason than to protect the workers who are
doing the foundation work. Besides, the mortar between the bricks is
turning to sand - a bunch of bricks have actually fallen off the
building!

There's a fair sized fireplace and a red brick chimney on my two story
house. From the outside, the chimney looks OK except maybe the top few
brick layers. I guess the whole chimney will have to come down too. It
doesn't freeze around here, really, but I don't have a heater (just
space heaters I use occasionally). I use the fireplace sometimes in the
winter to make brief little fires - I wouldn't trust it with a raging
biglog fire. If I did that, smoke would come in through the mantel (I
sealed that with duct tape years ago).

Contractor's seem to want to discourage me from repairing or replacing
the fireplace but they don't tell me it isn't doable. The cheapest
thing would seem to be to remove it entirely if and when I have the
foundation rebuilt and the siding replaced.

I have a lot of wood from trimming my plum trees. I figure I'll cut
those trees down, so I'll have a lot of wood to burn (or give away).

Yes, I could buy a wood burning stove, but aren't they sort of
depressing? I mean, you don't get to watch the fire, right? I know
there's a pollution downside to burning wood, but I'm not going to be a
big wood burner, just an occasional small, short fire for the hell in it
and a quick warm up.

Is it just too damned expensive to replace/repair my fireplace/chimney?
Thanks for any information.

Talk to "The Maine Wood Heat Co"