I was cleaning out the chimney and noticed a crack in the thimble. This is relatively small compared to some of the pictures I've seen online but I'm trying to determine if this is something that can be repaired or if I need to go ahead and replace the thimble? Thoughts?
I think I would replace it myself My reasoning and thoughts are I wouldn't want to be worried about if it's getting worse. I guess for piece of mind I myself would replace it
And kudos to you for doing a good inspection prior to the burning season. You could have just saved you, your family and your property from something catastrophic. This is why we stress good and frequent inspections of our appliances and flues.
Well as it seems every time I start on a project around this house is find out it is just the tip of the iceberg. I started knocking out the old thimble and found that whoever installed it did a major hack job. The thimble was wrapped with fiberglass and that was it between it and the chimney and outside. On top of this there was a stud that was running right where the thimble is, that is until it was just cut off. Looks like the idea is had been thinking about of moving the chimney might get moved up unless I can come up with a better idea.
It's hard to tell because I don't know your particular layout of your house but have you considered a stainless steel chimney Might be a better option
If I go with a new chimney rather than using this one stainless steel is the plan, straight up out of the stove through the roof.
Yeah what is kind of ironic is that we were working on the bathroom and found that there used to be a through the wall fan that went right through a stud. I'm noticing a pattern here...
Looks like he had a pet beaver gnaw the stud off! I hope his "handy work" in the home is limited to this one example. Makes you wonder how much time he put into coming up with that final solution ... one can only imagine the ideas he ruled out.
What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is. Dan Quayle
You could drop an insulated liner down that chimney. Either way, liner or new stainless chimney would be much safer than what I see especially with that shiny creosote right there at the stove. Please don't take this wrong as I'm only thinking of your safety but either you need better seasoned wood or more air if you have that type of creosote right where you should have a good bit of heat in the flue.
The creosote is probably a little of both, we were a little behind in cutting so there was some maple towards the end of the year that was more in the 24-28% range rather than under 20. We we're also trying to get longer burns out of the F3 than it was really intended for which didn't help. I know that's not a good thing to see and I will be taking steps to fix that moving forward and the wood I've checked that's in line for this year is reading 19-20%. So to update our plans, it looks like we are going to move the stock to a different spot in the room. I had a previous thread last year looking at some bigger stoves for our house, the ideal option would be to move it to a more central location but with how our house is laid out it really isn't practical without giving up a whole room (in this case our living room and that isn't going to fly). Unfortunately this means that it's still off to one side of the house but I think this location will be better (in the same room but at the end of the hall so I think I can put a fan in the hall and get some air moving over the stove which should hopefully help. The floor protection needed with the F3 is higher than I wanted with the new location (r1.1) so when looking around craigslist I found a Woodstock Keystone (5 years old, used 3) for a good price, and now that is waiting to be put in. Comparing the two I think that while the firebox on the keystone is only about .3 cu ft bigger on paper the way it is laid out I think it will fit close to twice the amount of wood so I think the difference is going to be bigger than it is on paper.
I cut through studs all the time. I find them to be an unnecessary building expense. Drywall is plenty strong enough to hold the house up. Jackposts, trusses, and support beams are other things that can be cut without worry.
