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Chimney Repair Cheltenham
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 Cheltenham, no matter the issue that you have.
Can you smell smoke in adjoining rooms when you light a fire?
Being able to smell smoke from the other rooms in your property when you have an open fire lit could mean that the flue, which is the pipe that runs on the inside of your chimney, is leaking. It is important to remember that is is completely normal for the inside of your chimney to degrade with age and usage. This is similar to the external structure.
The main solution to protecting the internal structure of your chimney and to ensure it’s safe to use that Turner Baker is to have it professionally lined.
In simple terms, a flue liner is a tube that fits down inside an existing chimney or even an existing flue in an older property. They are available in many different materials such as stainless steel, pumice, silica polymer and a thermosetting resin. Each of the different flue liners have their benefits and Turner Baker can recommend the most suitable one for your chimney repair Cheltenham.
Flue liners are obligatory for new build properties to be in line with building regulations Document J. This means that if you are building a new property or moving into a new build that has a chimney that you intend to use for heating purposes then it must be suitably lined.
Have you had a chimney fire?
Slow burning chimney fires do not 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 Cheltenham. This means that you may not even notice if you have had a chimney fire or not.
During a chimney fire, temperatures can reach 1,100 degrees Celsius. This extreme heat is therefore radiated through the chimney walls and any sparks that occur could ignite flammable materials, such as wooden beams, that may be nearby.
Even if you cannot see any damage on the external chimney breast, it is highly likely that damage will have occurred inside of the chimney following a chimney fire. If you have a stainless steel flue liner in your chimney, the liner will unfortunatley need to be completely replaced. This is due to the crystalline structure of the steel changes and it will then corrode very quickly if you continue to try and use it. Stainless steel is also prone to buckling and is reknown for changing shape when exposed to very high temperatures.
Other liners such as a concrete, pumice or Furanflex liner would need to be thoroughly checked using a CCTV inspection carried out by a professional before being used again following a chimney fire.
Do you have masonry bits falling into the fireplace?
Where a chimney is constructed from bricks, it is common that 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 require lining for the best chimney repair Cheltenham.
This is to prevent any smoke from spreading into another room in the property. 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. Having a build up of smoke deposits will increase the risk of a chimney fire. Any obstructions on the interior of the flue will stop the flow of smoke and prevent it from exiting through the top.
Is there smoke billowing down into the room instead of being drawn up into the flue?
A blockage can cause smoke to be diverted into other paths and potentially into the rooms in your property. The first thing that you need 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, as previously mentioned above. Having a regular chimney sweep will remove soot, birds’ nests, cobwebs and any other blockages. It also removes any 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 massively important that gas flues are swept at least once a year.
Is there structural damage to the chimney stack?
Smoke from open fires contains acidic compounds which, when deposited onto the masonry of the flue, can attack the mortar and masonry which will weaken the structure of the entire chimney.
This, combined with water penetration from wet 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 Cheltenham
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 Cheltenham please contact Turner Baker on 01432 839123 or info@turnerbaker.co.uk