Chimney liners?

I got an interesting e-mail from someone in my company in response to something I posted to our classifieds bulletin board. People solicit info about random things all of the time so I figured I'd ask for recommendations on chimney repair companies. This was the message:

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I just thought I'd send you a quick message regarding the estimate you received on a chimney liner. I bought my first house about six years ago, and had the chimneys inspected about a year later. I was told that I would need a stainless steel liner on a single flue chimney - the quote was $1800.00. I was skeptical about this, so I didn't agree to it, and later, when I was having my furnace serviced, I asked the oil company guys about it. I was told that this is a 'scam' - in almost all cases, no chimney liner is needed (especially if the house has oil heat).

I bought my current house in January. The home inspector told me that the chimney would need to be repaired, and after I went up on the roof and checked it myself, I decided to have it completely rebuilt and brought in a chimney contractor. I brought up the issue of the chimney condition and mentioned liners - this contractor literally started laughing and said the same thing - that it's a scam. In fact, he said that there was story on this on "Dateline", and that these companies apparently prey on certain groups of people, including the elderly. They do fraudulent carbon monoxide tests, etc.

So - although you may need a liner, I just figured I'd make you aware of this. If you'd like, I can give you the name of my chimney contractor (he's in Worcester - I live in Westborough), and he can at least refer you.

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Our quote was $3200 (we have 2 flues and a 40' plus high chimney) but we are guessing we could do better. I'm wondering now if lining the thing is even necessary. It IS an old house (86 years) and the fireplace hasn't been used as long as the previous family was in it (50+ years) so I expected it to need some maintenance.

Its too bad I don't have a relative in the business - contractors and landscapers I have; chimney sweeps I don't!

Silly, Silly

The house is going well:

2nd floor
-Bedroom Done
-Craft room gets 2nd coat of paint tonight (its REALLY bright green - whee!). Hopefully crown moulding and baseboards can go in tomorrow or Wednesday and then I can unpack and move things in.
-After that drywall and plaster in the computer room can commence.
-The bathroom I'm guessing will be drywalled/plastered and primed/painted next week.

1st floor:
-The living room needs another coat of paint on the ceiling, some paint on the old (now non-functional heating pipes in the corner of the room and some black paint over the ugly red paint on the fireplace bricks. We also have our nicely stripped (heh) poplar mantle that I need to stain and finish so that it can go back on the wall once the walls are painted.
-The dining room had the last coat of plaster yesterday and is ready to prime and paint.
-The den had the last coat of plaster yesterday and is ready to prime and paint. We are really hoping to have this done by the end of the week (we should, if we skip Netgoth coffee on Thursday or go late). If that is the case we'll be having an impromptu gathering at the house on Saturday night - BBQ and vege in our newly finished Den (wheeeee)!
-The downstairs bathroom will have the same work done as the upstairs; most likely next week.

Our downstairs foyer/upstairs hallway is going to be a bitch due to the high ceilings. B has done a couple of coats of plaster so that it may be ready for priming today or tomorrow.

Our kitchen - we've finally admitted it to ourselves that with my tuition bill that's due at the end of this month (which I've put the $ away for and saved but I hoped the bill would be less than it actually was to allow for more house $) and with the chimney lining thing we won't be able to do our kitchen remodel until after the holidays and possibly with a tax refund (that is, if we get one). In the meantime we picked up a cheap 'roll o' linoleum' and put it down over the ugly orange and brown 70's floor that was there. I'm so lazy; I wanted this to be low effort so I told B to just screw down the floor rather than going the proper route and glueing it. It looks WAY better (pictures will be coming soon). We'll also be either stripping the paper in there and throwing up a couple of coats of primer (or even just priming over the old wallpaper) to brighten it up a bit. The result - a retro 50's bright blue kitchen with not enough cabinets (but at least it won't be as butt ugly as it is now).

*Sigh*, so it was a tiring weekend taken up mostly with working on the house. Last night we crashed after moving boxes around in the living room so we could watch some TV (for the first time in over a month!) and tonight we'll be going to Ceremony after I do the 2nd coat of craft room paint.

Gee, isn't my life fascinating ;) ?

Yeah,

I know I'm posting a lot this morning but I'm waiting for a huge query to run and its going to take a while. I don't want my computer to choke on using too many resources so there's not much else I can do while I'm waiting.

Today is my 5 year anniversary working for my company which means I'll accrue more vacation time (we have an earned-time policy). I'm thinking if I can accumulate a bunch (doesn't look like we'll be taking many vacations aside from weekend trips for the time being) I can cash some out at the end of the year, woo hoo!

I checked my course schedule online - I'm taking 2 this semester which means on Monday I'll need to be at work at 7:00 to leave by 2:30 for a 4:00 class in Boston (accounting for traffic). My second class is on Wednesday nights from 7:00 - 9:30 (so if I'm hitting Man Ray at all it most likely will be directly from school without a stop home in the burbs first).

Damned Umass website! They haven't updated their bookstore section yet from the summer session classes so I can't see what books I'll need or how much they will cost. I wanted to try and get them from Amazon.com rather than the school store to save a bit of cash.

Classes start September 3rd; I am SO excited! This semester I'll be taking:
http://www.umb.edu/academics/courses/sociol600.html (since I started in the spring last year I wasn't able to take this)
http://www.umb.edu/academics/courses/sociol650.html

Oh yeah - I got an A in my first class so my current GPA is 4.0 :)

The kitchen floor

Here are the pix from our teeny (but temporary) kitchen improvements from yesterday. There are lots of before pix and a few after ones :)

http://thahood.net/images/05_-_kitchen/

The Home Depot Clearance sale has been a good thing for us . . . this fix only cost us $35 and about 1/2 hour to put down :)