|
Okay, you’ve gotten the bad
news: Your chimney liner is no good – or worse, there isn’t
any liner in there at all. Your home has a fire hazard. Congratulations,
you have another unexpected investment to make in your home, and
it’s hidden away behind bricks and mortar where you never
expected to find it. Now that you know about the cloud, you’ll want
to know about the silver lining. It’s called “CFS,” made
by a company called Thermocrete USA, and it is modern technology
for old chimneys. It is a cost-effective solution for unsafe chimneys,
designed to help you protect your investment in your home. So,
move over, terra cotta and stainless steel. Make way for CFS, the
ceramic flue sealant system that strengthens your entire chimney,
maintains the largest possible flue capacity for a good draft,
and carries with it a string of certifications that would make
a New York law firm proud. This is good stuff. But wait. You may be wondering just what it means
to need restoration of your liner in the first place. Chances are
you have never been inside your chimney. You probably don’t
even know anyone who has. So, here is the five-minute primer on
the inside of your chimney, and why it needs to have a safe liner. Your chimney’s job is roughly
the same as the job of your car’s exhaust system: to safely
remove the products of combustion. In the case of a car, those
products are carbon dioxide, water vapor, carbon monoxide, and,
if your car is anything like my truck, several other things that
you wish would stay in the engine. Chimneys emit many of the same
types of combustion products, and a few different ones. In addition
to emitting carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water vapor in
varying concentrations from burning any type of fuel, your chimney
may be emitting a number of different flammable hydrocarbon compounds,
substances that can build up on the inside walls of the chimney. Stretching the car analogy a bit,
it’s easy enough to see why your chimney needs to do its
job. We all know what happens when you run a car in a closed garage.
Some of those combustion products (especially carbon monoxide)
are poisonous. If you have had to replace your car’s exhaust
system, you know about another problem, corrosion. The same problems apply to chimneys.
For instance, soot from burning oil is acidic, and can eat away
at the lining of the chimney. Burning gas creates an enormous amount
of water vapor, which can accelerate the process of deterioration,
especially if soot deposits are present from current or past wood
or oil appliances. Corrosion can lead to blockages, structural
failure or leakage of toxic fumes into your home. But wait, there’s
more. In addition to the problem of corrosion and toxic emissions,
chimneys carry the risk of fire. Soot and creosote from incomplete
combustion of wood can build up on the interior walls of your chimney
and potentially cause a chimney fire. This is where your chimney professional
comes into the picture. Your chimney professional knows chimneys,
inside and out. He or she has, believe it or not, been inside chimneys.
(No kidding. Ask and you will hear the stories!) More importantly,
your chimney professional has studied the mechanics and construction
of chimneys, and understands what is happening behind those bricks – and
has the experience and equipment to evaluate your chimney and identify
hazards. If you aren’t completely convinced, then by all
means get a second opinion. But once you know you need chimney
liner restoration, it’s time to do some homework. The first step is understanding the
options. Chimneys.com has plenty of good information for you on
this topic. You can read about stainless steel liners, terra cotta
liners, refractory liners, and cast-in-place systems until you
almost feel as if you could put one of these things in yourself,
if only it didn’t involve ladders and roofs. But don’t
put one in yourself. Take it from the professionals who have done
this for years: It’s not as easy as it might seem, so hire
someone with the skills and experience to do it right. So why Thermocrete? For starters,
because the people behind the scenes at Thermocrete have made it
their business to be sure that every Thermocrete installer has
received extensive factory training in materials and installation
techniques, so you can feel confident that your local installer
is an expert. But the real story – especially
once you have pored over the information about stainless steel
and terra cotta until your head aches and chimney demolition seems
like a viable option – is that CFS is a chimney restoration
product in its own class. “Ceramic Flue Sealant,” or
CFS, is a patented ceramic material that is applied to the inside
surfaces of your chimney in multiple layers, sealing even the smallest
cracks and holes, strengthening your chimney and increasing its
efficiency. How does this work? For starters,
your chimney professional will give your chimney a thorough cleaning,
removing deposits and any loose materials. Then the patented CFS
is mixed, and an industrial spray applicator is lowered down each
flue and used to apply several layers of the material to the inside
walls of the chimney. The entire inside of the chimney is coated,
including the irregularly shaped areas such as the smoke chamber
of your fireplace. Your Thermocrete installer has special hand-held
equipment that facilitates application even to hard-to-reach spots. As each successive coat is applied,
all the cracks and imperfections inside each flue are filled. The
new, multi-layer ceramic coating creates a smooth, even finish
to the inside of the chimney, increasing venting efficiency and
decreasing thermal transfer – which means the heat stays
on the inside of the chimney, and the exhaust exits the home more
safely and efficiently. Another plus of the CFS system
is that it reduces the overall size of the flue much less than
many other liner systems, which sometimes makes the difference
between a restored flue with a good draft and a flue with a marginal
or poor draft. And if you have a multiple-flue chimney – say,
a chimney that serves a fireplace and a furnace, each with its
own flue – then CFS has another clear advantage: cost.
Using other systems, your cost to restore two flues could be
nearly double the cost of just one. But the CFS system allows
your installer to restore the entire chimney – all flues – much
more efficiently and therefore at a lower cost.
So, cheer up. Yes, you need to fix your chimney, and yes, it’s one of
those “surprise” investments in your home. But look at the silver
lining, and contact your local Thermocrete dealer for more information about
CFS. It’s an investment worth making. This article was prepared from
information supplied by Thermocrete. |
