Preparing for the Inevitable

We have to line several chimneys this year if we want our woodstoves to work. There are a total of 7 chimneys in this place. Some will be lined with flexible stainless steel liners while two of them will be lined with tile liners if I can lower them down without too much hassel. One room that gets a woodstove is the parlor, which is the room I am currently working on.
On Thursday I marked an area on the wall where the stovepipe would enter. I then looked up the chimney and had to move it 4 inches to the right and draw a 7" circle. Being the precise person that I am, I used a coffee can lid (6 1/2 inches) and a carpenters pencil. I then chisled a hole into the brick that would be slightly larger than 7" because I have to make a galvanized steel thimble to line the hole. You can't find a thimble for a 7" hole anywhere only ones for 6" and 8" holes. I would have to make one out of a strip of galvanised sheet metal and seal it good with refractory cement.

I also need to buy black stovepipe for the woodstove. In order to figure out what I would need, I fumbled through my pile of duct fittings removed in previous years and stored in the basement and found some 7" pipe and fittings. I rigged them up on the stove and everything lines up. Maybe I should have done this before putting the hole in the wall!

I also have to brick up the hole that I made where a fireplace used to be. I had to penetrate the wall in order to clean out the debris. I can't brick up the whole thing yet because I plan to feed the liner up this chimney and I need an opening for that. I want to put a cleanout door in this wall to make chimney sweeping more convienient so I have bricked up the lower portion and formed a floor for my cleanout. So here is a picture of the area as of Friday night. There is a piece of 7" pipe in the wall holding the thimble while the cement dries in case you wondered and I used my newly acquired stucco skills to apply a "Brown coat" to the brick work that I have already done.



Now if I would just clean up the tools and all the crap I have on floor, maybe I can finish smoothing the walls and get the floor sanded!