Understanding how your fireplace, chimney and flue all work together to safely vent a fire is vital. A proper chimney flue is essential to the fireplace preforming well. The flue liner in your fireplace start right above your damper, it’s function is to safely send the smoke and fumes spiraling up and out of your chimney. The flue is the first line of defense in the safe operation of your fireplace. Most masonry fireplace have a ceramic flue in them, they are stacked and cemented together with a heat resistant cement. Surrounding these flue liner is a masonry core made up of brick, block or stone. Maintaining your chimney is essential, every year their our thousands of house fires that are caused by the failure to maintain the chimney flue. An annual inspection of your fireplace will help keep your home safe. Hears what you need to know. Creosote is a highly combustible tar like substance and is a natural by product of burning wood. The more wood that you burn, the more creosote will build up. This is especial so when the wood that you are burning is wet or green. Also if you restrict the airflow by keeping the fireplace doors closed or the damper barely open, more creosote can build up.

          Maintenance!  Even with proper maintenance a flue liner can crack or be damage by a hard freeze, always start a small fire to begin with and let your chimney flue warm up slowly, don’t combining a large fire with freezing weather it’s a sure way to damage your chimney flue. Even more scary is that there are thousands of fireplace out there that were built with out flue liners in them. They are relying only on the mass of  the stone or brick to direst the heat and fumes safely up the chimney. In these cases you should  consider having your chimney relined. This will create a safe smooth passage to expel the smoke and gases. There are two ways that you can do this. One way is to install a flexible stainless steel  liner, this can be done by inserting it down the chimney, and thus taking the place of the damage flue liner.  The other method of relining a flue is a preferred way if you want to keep using your fireplace as a regular wood burning fireplace.  This technique involves inserting a balloon like device into the chimney and pouring a refractory type cement around it. When the cement sets you collapse the balloon and remove it and have a safe new flue.

          How high does your chimney need to be? In order for the chimney flue to have a proper draw it is critical that there should be at least 12 to 14 feet of flue liner above the damper. Generally speaking the higher the chimney flue is the greater the draw will be. As the chimney extends through the roof line it must be  at least  3 feet  above the roof. this will help keep down draft to a minimum. Two other consideration need to be consider if the fireplace chimney is over 2 feet wide you may want to place a cricket behind it. This will keep water from building up behind it and causing flashing problems. Chimney Repair Bellevue Last but not least make sure that your chimneys crown is in good repair, this is main cause of chimney fireplace failure. Water penetration will destroy your chimney, and don’t  forget to place a rain guard  over the flue liner this helps protect the whole fireplace.                                 

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