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Chimney Repair Birmingham
Some warning signs that you need your chimney repaired
Turner Baker are here to help if your chimney becomes damaged from fire or old age. With over 10 years experience, we offer high quality chimney repair Birmingham, no matter the issue that you have.
You can smell smoke in the rooms of your property when you light your fire or stove
If the smell smoke in other rooms when your fire is lit is present, it is likely that your flue (the pipe running up inside the chimney) is leaking. Your chimney is liable to degrade with age and use, in much the same way that the external structure does.
One of the main solutions to protecting the internal integrity of your chimney and flue, and therefore ensure that it is safe to use, is to have it lined by a professional.
A flue liner is, in simple terms a tube that fits inside an existing chimney or even an existing flue in an older property. Flue liners are available in many different materials such as stainless steel, pumice, silica polymer and a thermosetting resin. This means that you can find the most suitable one for your flue and chimney repair Birmingham.
In recent years, flue liners have become obligatory for new build properties in accordance with building regulations Document J. This means that if you are building a new property with a chimney that you intend to use for heating purposes, it must be suitably lined.
There has been a chimney fire
Some people may have had a chimney fire in their property and not know anything about it at all. Slow burning chimney fires don’t get enough air or fuel to be dramatic or visible. However, they can still cause substantial damage. Therefore requiring a substantial amount of chimney repair Birmingham.
Temperatures can reach 1,100 degrees Celsius during a chimney fire. The effect of this is that heat is then radiated through walls and any sparks could ignite any nearby flammable materials, such as wooden beams, that may be nearby.
Even if you can’t see any damage on the chimney breast, it is highly likely that damage will have occurred on the inside of the chimney following a fire. If you have a stainless steel flue liner in your chimney, the liner will need to be replaced completely as the crystalline structure of the steel changes meaning that it will corrode very quickly if you continue to try to use it. Stainless steel is also prone to buckling and changing shape when exposed to high temperatures.
Other liners such as a concrete, pumice or Furanflex liner would need to be thoroughly checked with a professional CCTV inspection before being used again following a chimney fire.
Masonry falling into the fireplace
Where a chimney is constructed from brick, the bricks can degrade and crumble over time. It is likely that the mortar in between the bricks will degrade as well. Any sign of degradation of the internal brickwork means that the chimney will require new lining for the best chimney repair Birmingham.
This is because the flue may leak smoke into another room in the property. Also, smoke travels most efficiently through a smooth flue. Therefore, to get the best performance from your open fire, multi fuel stove or wood burner, the smoke needs to exit the flue as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Any lumps and other potential obstructions caused by the uneven bricks on the way up through the flue will slow down the flow of the smoke. This means that the smoke will cool and leave deposits on the side of the flue. This is not good. A build up will quickly begin and increase the risk of a chimney fire occuring.
Smoke billowing into the room instead of being drawn up into the flue
Smoke billowing into your rooms could mean that there is a blockage in the chimney. The first thing to do is to get the chimney swept by a Guild of Master Sweeps or NACS accredited chimney sweep, such as Turner Baker. Chimneys must allow the free passage of hot flue gases containing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere at a higher elevation. Having your chimney regularly sweept will remove soot, birds’ nests, cobwebs and any other blockages. It will also remove creosote, which will help to prevent chimney fires.
Any blockage in a gas flue could cause carbon monoxide poisoning to the people in the property. Whilst gas flues are often smaller and do not attract the attention of birds for example, it is not unusual for something as small as a spiders web to cause a significant blockage. Therefore, it is important that gas flues are swept at least once a year.
Chimney stack structural damage
Smoke contains acidic compounds can attack the mortar and masonry, therefore weakening the structure of the whole chimney, when deposited onto the masonry of the flue
This, combined with water penetration from the weather and fracturing from frosts, can leave a chimney stack in a very unstable state. This could result in either damage to the faces of some of the brickwork, the loosening of a few bricks, or the collapse of the entire chimney stack.
Turner Baker Chimney Repair Birmingham
More information on different types of chimney problem can be found on our website www.turnerbaker.co.uk. If you would like any further advice about chimney repair Birmingham please contact Turner Baker on 01432 839123 or info@turnerbaker.co.uk