Is it worth £800 to line a chimney to use a wood-burning stove?

[MrsJamin]

We bought a house a few months ago with a lovely wood burning stove and I thought it was ready to use, however we have realised the chimney is not lined. We have a quote for £800 to do the work but it seems like such a lot of money- is it actually worth it? It's just over a month of my salary (work part time on a pittance). :(

Flow4, I hope they aren't expensive issues to fix? I think we should get it done, as I think we will be here for a long time and we might as well be in for the long haul with the fire working properly.

not checking the HETAS situation on the woodburner was wrong - but the survey should have flagged this up, as should the solicitor. In the same way as recent double glazing has to have a FENSA certificate and the professionals need to check for this.

The real problem with stoves versus open fires is that the stove radiates the majority of heat to the room, which is obviously good from heating efficiency, whereas open fire largely heats the flue gases. Good hot flue gases will make their way nicely up an unlined chimney, but cooler flue gases don't. The flue liner means that the gases are insulated, can get hotter, and therefore can escape to the top of the chimney, rather than dropping back down and flooding your room with carbon monoxide. Save up and pay for the flue liner... Don't put your family's lives at risk.

I'm hoping to get a wood stove fitted within the next couple years. The previous tenants had a chimney fire, so I'm definitely going to make sure it's lined. No sense taking a chance.

You already know you need the liner but on a non-practical note I absolutely LOVE our wood burning stove. Nothing better than an afternoon snuggled up on the sofa, preferably with tea and cake on a grotty winters day.
I wouldn't be without ours and would definitely have one put in on any future houses.

Great explanation , thanks brownsauce. :)

Oh and for anyone getting a wood stove - get a carbon monoxide detector.

Your quote seems very steep. I was looking at stoves in a shop near me last month and another customer was asking about fitting cost for a chimney that was boarded up by a previous owner. The shop assistant told her it would be £350 to unblock, sweep, line and fit the stove.

£350 for all that sounds very cheap to me, Issy. We considered doing the work ourselves, but the liners alone are frigging expensive. Tell me, was the stove shop saying that's what they would charge to do the chimney, or was it an estimate of the going rate for contractors? If the latter, let's face it, it's in their interest to downplay the trouble and expense if they think they get an immediate sale on the stove. And nobody can give a sensible estimate without seeing the house.

I definitely think the OP should get at least two quotes, but I wouldn't be hugely surprised if others are in the same ballpark.

Issy for a two storey house the liner alone would cost that, let alone labour costs and the rest. Doesn't sound like the assistant knew what they were talking about.

You have to have your chimney lined to be in line with the building regulations and this has to be done by either a hetas registered engineer or approved by building control.

My DP is a builder and we occasionally fit these - we go through building control as its not worth us registering with hetas as it is £££s. It has to be done properly (of course) and certified - if you don't have this done it could have an adverse affect when you sell the house.

Make sure that whoeve fits your fire is competent - there are lots of rules and regulations and with good reason. Most important is ventelation, this is way more important than lining - without adequate ventilation you could end up with carbon monoxide poisoning.

£800 sounds bloody cheap actually as we charge about £1200 although that is with fully insulating the chimney, fitting the fire, all the safety tests. We also install a 25 year liner, alot of the cheaper companies only fit one that is good for 10 years.

SAying all that - we don't have our chimney lined as we fitted ours years ago before the law changed, we will get round to it though as the burners will burn more efficiently with a properly lined chimney.

Issy - £350 wouldn't even cover materials, what are they proposing to line it with, loo roll holders?

Brown sauce - you are exactly right, its impossible to give anything other than a very ball park figure, there are sooo many variables to take into consideration. I have helped DP install a liner once when his colleague couldnt help him - OMFG! It is worth every penny that people charge for it, I couldn't believe it when i realised that actually the chimney didn't go straight up and we had to guide the liner around CORNERS!! Then there is the cost of the scaffold or tower hire - thats £150 before you even start! more if its scaffolding. To tell soeone it can be done for £350 smacks of desperate for a sale.

It is doable as a DIY thing, but you would still have to get building control to sign it off.

We had two stoves in two rooms.
One chimney was sound so we didn't line it.
The other wasn't so we did.

I in doubt,I would line.Peace of mind is worth a price at times.

I think that figure doesn't sound either astronomically cheap nor astronomically expensive.

Haven't read thread but I imagine current regs would require that the chimney is lined,and insurance would be null and void in the case of a chimney fire if that is so.

Thats right very small - to the extent that if you fit a log burner, you have to fit a liner, even if it is already lined!

Well if it was just £350 for labour and you bought materials yourself, then it sounds about right actually. That's what my sweep suggested, and I was much happier that way. Of course he didn't use scaffolding, but then I unblock my gutters without one. It was an arse to do I'm sure, but did only take a day in total. Even my builders don't charge much more than that for a days work.

Was he hetas registered mummy, or did he go via building control? Because a visit from the building control inspector can cost upwards of £150 depending on where you live? Materials would be anything between £3-£400 at a basic, then theres the CO2 detector, permanently open ventilation in the room, insulation for the chimney can set you about £100. Madness to do it off a ladder and probably breaks some sort of health and safety regulation. Those liners are a bastard to carry around and you need two people to do the job. Saying that £300 - £400 materials only, if the client orders and collects/has delivered sounds about right labour wise. Just be aware that there are ALOT of hidden costs.

Oh and can my DP come and do work for you Mummy, on a day rate of £350 a day he would think he'd won the lottery Especially if you keep the teas and coffees flowing! He likes rich tea but not hob nobs

Hetas - our building control charges an effing fortune. I think the vermiculite was about £100, I was really surprised at how expensive it was just to insulate. Slate hearth was £80, stove was about £450 but did come with a free register plate and flue pipe. Can't remember how much the chimney kit or liner was, but we were lucky on the ventilation as we have floorboards and a massive void with air bricks under the floor, so we vented down next to an air brick. It's behind the TV and you can't see it generally. I suspect as he does it all the time, it doesn't take him as long to do and he was pretty nifty up and down that ladder. There was a certain amount of grumping about getting the liner round the corner from what I remember.

I'm awful at teas and coffees, but I do send my builders home with eggs from the chooks and the odd bit of cake. Except when they drop ceilings on the baby. Then they get resentful looks.

resentful looks? I am actually gobsmacked at the different prices that building control charge depending on council. We did a burner for a client who lived in a different county and it was three times as much We don't do enough to warrant doing HETAS as DP is more of a general builder and a carpenter by trade, but we do them for existing clients if they ask. We suck up the price of building control as part of our quote though. I think most older houses probably don't NEED the vents and if you go for a smaller Kw burner you don't have to have one. (can you tell it was me who had to trawl through the building regs when DP started doing these!)

You have to have your chimney lined to be in line with the building regulations and this has to be done by either a hetas registered engineer or approved by building control

mine was done by a Hetas installer two years ago,I have the cerificate for insurance and I never had my chimney lined,the installer tested the chimney and advised as it was clay lined it didnt need another liner,so above info isnt strictly correct

Hi,

Sorry to hijack. How can you tell if your chimney is already lined and how can you tell if the lining needs replacing? I've found pieces of dirty sooty thick stuff in my log burner and I can hear them fall down the pipe going out of the log burner occasionally. I do need to get the chimney swept so will they check then? How much does this normally cost? (New house, never needed to do this before).

Sorry

I'd get it lined. You'll also need a carbon monoxide detector IIRC.

The black stuff falling down the chimney is the old lining, but I think the engineer told us that. To clarify, my decision is between:
A) pay £800 to get the chimney lined and thus use the fire safely
B) not pay £800 and don't use the wood burning stove.
Have been in a house fire and have no intention of being in one again- no way would I use the WBS if I knew it could leak carbon monoxide. The decision is whether the fireplace is merely decorative or whether it is actually worth £800 to be able to use the WBS we have. I think we should go for it as we'll be in this house for a good while.

oh definately go for it - quite apart from the savings (although these aren't massive as due to popularity, logs are expensive) the type of heat you get from a log burner is just so much more cosy than from radiators. I absolutely love ours. We really do need to get round to lining the chimney though!