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The Warning Signs That It’s Time for Chimney Repair Bristol
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 Bristol, no matter the issue that you have.
When you light your fire or stove, you can smell smoke in adjoining rooms
If you can smell smoke in other rooms when your fire is lit, it is likely that your flue, which is the pipe running up inside the chimney, is leaking. It is important to remember that the inside of your chimney is liable to degrade with age and use in much the same way as the external structure does.
The main solution to protecting the internal structure of your chimney or flue and to ensure that it is safe to use is to have it professionally lined.
A flue liner is, in simple terms a tube that fits down inside an existing chimney or even an existing flue in an older property. Flue liners are available in many different materials including stainless steel, pumice, silica polymer and a thermosetting resin. This means you can find the most suitable one for your chimney repair Bristol.
Flue liners are 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 then it must be suitably lined.
You’ve had a chimney fire
Some people have a chimney fire in their property and know nothing about it at all. Slow burning chimney fires don’t get enough air or fuel to be dramatic or visible but they can still cause substantial damage. Therefore requiring a substantial amount of chimney repair Bristol.
Temperatures can reach 1,100 degrees Celsius during a chimney fire. The effect of this is that heat is radiated through walls and any sparks could ignite 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 inside the chimney following a chimney fire. If you have a stainless steel flue liner in your chimney, the liner will need to be replaced as the crystalline structure of the steel changes and it will corrode very quickly if you continue to try and use it. Stainless steel is also prone to buckling and changing shape when exposed to very high temperatures.
Other liners such as a concrete, pumice or Furanflex liner would need to be thoroughly checked with a CCTV inspection carried out by a professional before being used again following a chimney fire.
You have bits of masonry falling into the fireplace
Where a chimney is constructed from brick, the bricks may degrade and crumble over time and 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 have to be lined for the best chimney repair Bristol.
This is because the flue may leak smoke into another room in the property. Also, smoke will travel most efficiently through a smooth flue, so to get the best performance from your open fire or multi fuel stove or wood burner the smoke needs to exit via the flue as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Any lumps and bumps caused by the uneven bricks on the way up through the flue will slow down the flow of the smoke; the smoke will cool and leave deposits on the side of the flue. This is not good. A build up will quickly occur and increase the risk of a chimney fire.
Smoke billows down into the room instead of being drawn up into the flue
There could be 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. Chimneys need to allow the free passage of hot flue gases containing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere at a higher elevation. Regular sweeping will remove soot, birds’ nests, cobwebs and any other blockages. It also removes creosote, which will help to prevent chimney fires.
Any blockage in a gas flue could cause carbon monoxide poisoning. 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. It is therefore important that gas flues are swept at least once a year.
Structural damage to the chimney stack
Smoke contains acidic compounds which, when deposited onto the masonry of the flue, can attack the mortar and masonry weakening the structure of the whole chimney.
This, combined with water penetration from the weather and fracturing from frosts, can leave a chimney stack in a very unstable state. The result could be 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 Bristol
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 Bristol please contact Turner Baker on 01432 839123 or info@turnerbaker.co.uk