The old stove looks to be in tired and in very poor condition. Its size tells us it has a heat output that is far too big for this room but in the past if you had a large fireplace it was common to fill it with a big stove. We now size the stove output to the room in order that you don't get too hot and can't use the stove properly.

The old flue pipe is not suitable for a solid fuel stove as it is a wound galvanised duct pipe but how far up the chimney does it go? Nobody knows, yet! What we do know is that there isn't any insulation in the chimney void which is essential on a property with a thatched roof to prevent the thatch catching fire.

Well that answers that question, nearly to the top but not quite. This will have affected the operation of the stove but more significantly allowed soot and debris to fall down around the outside of the pipe during use and during chimney sweeping presenting a fire risk wherever it built up. The pipe is in 3 foot sections which aren't fixed together and could have been knocked apart by an over enthusiastic chimney sweep.

Again the past come back to get us, the chimney has been rebuilt some time ago and the midfeathers, the brickwork dividing the separate flues in a chimney, don't go all the way to the top. There are four flues in this chimney and two of them belong to the neighbouring property. It is essential for safety to build the midfeathers up to the top.

Some time and a little building later all is much better with an oversailing course added to allow rainwater to drip away from the chimney stack below and we have a four sided self-contained flue to support our liner top plate and the chimney pot. We are now ready for re-lining and insulating.

The finished chimney, we have used a tall chimney pot to give us the height we need above the thatched roof and have covered our clients disused flue leaving a vent to prevent dampness. The neighbours functioning chimneys have been through smoke tested in case we have dislodged or dropped anything down during our works to the top of the stack.

The inside is finished with a new register plate and flue pipes before the new Hunter woodburning stove is test fired and handed over to our client.