Eye candy and chimney liners

jonny88

Just came back from giving a quote on a oil to gas conversion.Customer had his chimney lined a year ago.I looked in the breach of the chimney and did not see liner.Went up on the roof and saw a liner.Head scratching time.I pulled on the liner and lo and behold it came out all 6 foot of it.How many other people did this scumbag do it to.And by the way the company is in the chimney lining business.Twenty minutes work for $1k not bad eh?

Steamhead

He should get in touch with his lawyer.

Abracadabra

damn... whoever did that needs to be tracked down and stopped..

Harvey Ramer

They didn't want to get dirty from the soot.

What a shame.

ChrisJ

Whoever had lined the chimney in this house before I bought it went further than that, but just as useless and probably far more dangerous.

Chimney had a 4x7" opening most of the way. In the attic it had a fairly large offset and had been rebuilt using block and I think the opening was 6" square?

They jammed a 6" liner in it and it was in 3 or 4 pieces. Clogged badly at least in one spot and impossible to clean. It was badly ovaled and probably barely flowing down the majority of the 4x7 chimney. When I had my guys come in and try to clean it they were confused as to why pieces of clay were falling down a SS lined chimney.

The multi-sections of oversized liner jammed into the chimney restricted it, made it impossible to clean and resulted in it being clogged. At the time, an oil fired boiler was connected to it.

So, overall I guess whoever did the job actually did do a lot of work, but they made a very dangerous chimney and got paid for it.

SlamDunk

I don't know what it is with chimney guys.

We were contemplating an oil to gas conversion for my mother's house. Hired a company to do a video inspection and provide an estimate for a chimney liner. Furnace stack gets removed and chimney base is cleaned annually with combustion analysis. These guys found rust on the hairy edge of where one stack inserts into another (The stack is 90yrs old! ) and they immediately started to hammer our mother with how urgent it is to repair the stack, "Danger! Danger! " "Life and death!" they were going to lock out the furnace, call the city unless she wrote them a check to cover immediate repairs. It was August!

Ironically, when my brother was calling around, he started with his long time oil supplier in Brooklyn for references. The guy said he had none but, "whatever you do, don't let any chimney company come in the house when your mother is alone!

ChrisJ

SlamDunk said:

I don't know what it is with chimney guys.

We were contemplating an oil to gas conversion for my mother's house. Hired a company to do a video inspection and provide an estimate for a chimney liner. Furnace stack gets removed and chimney base is cleaned annually with combustion analysis. These guys found rust on the hairy edge of where one stack inserts into another (The stack is 90yrs old! ) and they immediately started to hammer our mother with how urgent it is to repair the stack, "Danger! Danger! " "Life and death!" they were going to lock out the furnace, call the city unless she wrote them a check to cover immediate repairs. It was August!

Ironically, when my brother was calling around, he started with his long time oil supplier in Brooklyn for references. The guy said he had none but, "whatever you do, don't let any chimney company come in the house when your mother is alone!

I would say this is just as unfair as saying all plumbers, electricians and carpenters rip people off which simply isn't true.

Out of everyone I dealt with the chimney company was the only one I didn't have problems with.

SlamDunk

I agree ; I know it is unfair to paint with a broad brush and I have some remorse. But, the combination of Google research that is largely negative and an accurate forewarning from a local industry insider, they lived up to a reputation that precedes my post.

That odd thing is, they knew what our intentions were. That stack was history anyway. We were going to spend thousands with them but they jumped on a twenty dollar piece of duct that had surface rust. That was as unethical and scarily similar to what we knew to expect going in. You were lucky. I was not.

jonny88

i have had great experiences with chimney companies so lets no tar everyone with the same brush.Corruption does not stop at trades people.Every industry has good and bad.Just sharing an experience and hopefully someone might learn from it.

SlamDunk

Ok. Fair enough. I apologize for offending all chimney companies. I Googled chimney sweep scams and only came up with half a dozen articles, so out of curiosity, I Googled plumber scams and contractor scams and came up with pages and pages of articles and I know I hold you guys in high esteem, as well as most of the trades I deal with on a daily basis. So, I take back the first sentence of my first post.

Just ineptly sharing my personal experience just like you did.

John Mills_5

We saw that once. Enough bend in the chimney liner couldn't go. So instead of telling HO, they made it look like they did it just like what you found.