Supaflu Relining Day 1
We began renovating a fireplace chimney. This will be a fairly complete chimney renovation including waterproofing and a cast in place Supaflu chimney liner. The purpose of the renovation is to prevent further water damage and improve the functioning of the fireplace chimney.
The smoke chamber of the fireplace is poorly constructed, with pockets to either side of the flue tile that create turbulence in the flow of flue gases. The flue tiles are not properly supported, and begin just above the damper plate. It is only because the flue tile is oversized that the fireplace is able to function at all.
An oversized flue will remove large amounts of heated air from the house when the fireplace is used, creating a significant waste of energy. Even with a properly sized flue, a typical open fireplace is not very efficient. By reducing the flue size of this chimney and streamlining its smoke chamber, the fireplace should perform better and remove less energy from the house.
We’ll be completely restructuring the top of the chimney to replace a damaged mortar wash with a concrete crown. We’ll fill a few open mortar joints with mortar repair caulk and treat the chimney exterior with ChimneySaver Water Repellent.
Today we began with demolition, as seen in the gallery.