Chimney & Fireplace

Reconnecting wood burning stove flue after chimney refurb

Anonymous user 03/03/2024 - 3.38 PM

Hi there, We recently had our chimney stacks completely refurbished to try to eliminate issues with rainwater ingress. This involved re-doing the render, flashing and also the crown and replacing the old pots (which were in bad condition and too short -- it seems previously, extra mortar had been build up around them but with the effect that they protruded only minimally from the chimney itself). We have a wood burner on one of the stacks (installed a few years ago) and the roofers had to disconnect the (flexible steel) flue liner to replace the corresponding pot, removing the pot-hangar cowl. If you look down inside the new pot, the disconnected flue liner is visible just inside. They did mention this before starting letting us know we would need to get someone to reconnect it before we could use the stove again. Perhaps naively, we assumed this would be a simple and cheap job for an appropriately qualified person. I have contacted the original stove installers and a few other local companies -- all of them are telling us there is no option but to replace the entire flue liner at a cost of around £1,500 (it is a three storey stack). This seems quite frankly ridiculous to me since it seems all that needs to happen is to reconnect a new pot-hangar cowl, perhaps with a slightly longer bottom pipe since the flue liner might now be a few inches too short. It seems the issue is primarily that no company is willing to sign it off since they have not seen the state of the flue liner (and original company who installed it are unwilling to budge). What are my options here? * What would happen if I did nothing and left the disconnected flue in its current state just sitting below the pot and used the burner (I am assuming this is probably dangerous so not intending to do this, but interested in what is the actual issue). * What would happen if I connected a new pot-hangar cowl myself if I can find one with a sufficiently long pipe underneath to reach the now-slightly-short liner. From what I can see, this is quite easy to do but of course, it would not be properly signed off anymore. Are there actually any real dangers to me doing this? Thanks!