Rocky has left the building

Rocky, as my friends have affectionately names our little houseguest, seems to have moved on. We played loud rock music all day right into the fireplace where he'd taken up residence and that seemed to do it. However, that doesn't mean we're getting off cheap here. Ooooh no, not by a long shot.

We had two different chimney companies come out (and one more than once) and give us estimates for what needed doing. These were in addition to the guys who came last year and told us we needed a new liner.

For reference, our chimney has three different flues in it--the one to the front of the house goes to the basement fireplace, the middle one goes to the upstairs fireplace, and the back one goes to the oil burner. I had no idea they all fit in there like that! We have one cap installed on our upstairs fireplace (middle flue) but that was all. Rocky had settled into the lower fireplace, just above the damper. So here is the breakdown:

As a refresher, Chimney Company 1 said last summer that we need to immediately replace the liner in the furnace flue for about $2000. Masonry work around the top of the chimney was also necessary. We didn't really trust them and decided that we would look into getting some additional opinions this year. The raccoon was good pretext for having chimney folks come out.

Chimney Company 2 came out a little over a week ago to have a look. They said that we needed caps put on two flues and masonry work at the top, but didn't feel we needed the chimney relined. They quote a price of $800 to $1000, which also included spooking Rocky out if necessary.This company was recommended to us by some people who live in the neighborhood.

Chimney Company 3 said we did need to have our furnace flue relined, as well as the masonry work and caps. The guy even took a video with his phone:

The problems with all these videos and photos is that it is clear we need masonry work but totally dark down the flue, so it doesn't prove one way or another that we need a liner. But anyway, their estimate included relining one of the flues because they claimed the terra cotta liner was breaking off. Price? $2400. Ouch!

So now we were comparing apples to oranges between the two companies. We called Chimney Company 2 back and asked how confident they were that we didn't need a liner and were told that they only looked around the top and it didn't seem too bad. If we wanted, they could come back and run a camera down, so we said yes.

The owner himself showed up to take a look. While he was up there, he put some temporary caps on the chimney so the raccoon (which he confirmed had left) couldn't easily get back in. After some digging around on the top of the chimney as well as in our basement, here's what he had to say:

Yes, the chimney liner was cracking off and would need relining. BUT THERE'S MORE. Because the furnace flue makes almost a right-angle turn behind our wall to get between the furnace and the chimney, the chipping terra cotta was actually falling to the bottom and clogging the pipe. Here is my rudimentary drawing, reflecting the situation as described to me:

The red circle is where the clog is happening. The chimney guy explained that because of this clog, which he said was 2/3 (i.e. only 1/3 free), the carbon monoxide wasn't venting out the chimney fully. He said that in addition to the complicated job of cleaning out and relining the flue around that bend, they would need to install an access point from inside our house to that corner to catch oil drippings that would collect there over time (right now the oil is presumably absorbed into the terra cotta but the new liner would be steel). Yay, another hole in the wall... He hasn't emailed us the estimate yet but said the whole job would be aorund $3000. The price keeps crawling higher!

But boy let me tell you that is one way to scare someone into spending money! He wasn't pushy at all or unnecessarily scary, but mention carbon monoxide and you've got yourself a deal. Good thing this is summer so we don't need our heat on. This might also explain why our energy auditor noticed some higher ambient CO levels even though the furnace company, with less sophisticated tool that only tested immediately around the furnace, didn't. Fortunately these are not incredibly high levels. We have CO testers on every floor of the house and nothing went off, but still, not something we want to continue.

But here's the part that worries me a little: why didn't anyone else notice this problem? This guy seemed pretty trustworthy and comes recommended, but I hope he doesn't just figure that we're suckers just begging to spend money. I almost want to get yet another estimate, but I am sick of having people wandering around looking without doing. Just fix the darn problem already. So we will probably just hire this company to do all sorts of work we never even anticipated when we saw Rocky up there on that fateful day. Please, as always, share you thoughts--we're clueless on this one and $3000 is not something to take lightly