Our new homestead has 2 heat sources. One being oil, the other propane. Gez, are oil prices high and propane is not any better. We have 3 chimneys (no fireplaces - just chimneys). We would like to go with a wood burning stove. The old owner told us they were cleaned and checked about a year ago. No one has used them in 20 years. They seem very sound. So here's the question. I am assuming they were used for woodburners years ago(???) but I only see one hole opening in one. I can't find any in the other two. They have been plastered over or something. Without taking off ALL the paster how do I find where the openings are? What if there is no opening? How do you get a stove hole in brick???

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001

Answers

we will be getting a wood-burning stove this year but we ARE NOT going to route it up the existing beautiful brick chimney we have....because when my dad lived here he had too many chimney fires and there is too much damage inside the chimney...even a hairline crack is enough to start a fire in your attic that could burn your home and kill your family....

we are going to set the wood burning stove on the hearth (as daddy's used to be) but knock some bricks out the back and run three wall pipe up the length of the chimney to the top on the OUTSIDE back of the chimney! we would run the three wall pipe up through the chimney but there is a "crook" so that wouldn't work. We will have a meal "thing" fixed to go in the fireplace opening but through which the stove pipe can run going out the back of the chimney to go up outside the back of the chimney....

we've explored many options including consulting with a well known chimney sweep who looked over our chimney for free because I did an article about him! (I'm a writer)

anyway, whatever route you choose, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BATTERY-OPERATED smoke detectors near your bedrooms.

We heated with wood in our previous house from 1979-1988 and we loved it!!! suzy

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001.

You can line the chimney if it is reasonably sound with a stainless steel liner. Another remedy is to have a professional put in mortar liner which is quite expensive. If you rap on the wall where you think the old flue entrance is you might be able to detect a change in tone where they mudded up the old hole. Rules were pretty lax years ago which resulted in a lot of fires so find someone that knows proper clearances to combustibles etc. good luck karen

-- jz (pz49us@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001.

Enclose a BIG sound source in a compact form (say a radio) in a plastic bag. Attach a rope (VERY securely). Have someone lower it down the chimneys from the roof while someone else listens inside the house - someone with a step-ladder in this case, since the usable structure of the chimneys may have been removed below ceiling level in your case. Swap listener and up-top person (or at least have up- top person come down and listen too) so you can exchange skills and spread the blame if you're wrong. Remember the opening may be on either side of a wall. This can at least give you some clues as to where to start looking. May cost you an hour (slow and careful while you're up on the roof), but that's cheaper than opening a wall or ceiling in the wrong place.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), September 15, 2001.

We have a 130 year old house with a brick chimney that was re-laid from the new bricks and some of the old bricks when a windstorm blew the chimney over during the 1980s. When we visited with a store in Wichita about buying a woodburning kitchen stove, they were going to come to the house and check the chimney to see about installing some steel pipe inserts, which are about 6 inch diameter tubes, to ensure that the mortar and brick construction doesn't cause a problem down the road. We have a conversion gravity furnace, originally coal, converted to propane in the 1930s, and they say the petroleum residue and sediment that settles in the inside of a chimney will deteriorate the integrity of the structure. It turns the mortar back to sand and softens the brick. If you decide to use one of your chimneys, be sure you get a metal chimney liner put in by a reputable installer and do it right.

-- Claudia Glass (glasss2001@prodigy.net), September 21, 2001.