franklin2
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- 1984
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- Bronco II
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One of the old houses I once owned was two story with two different chimneys. It had multiple thimbles also (that is what they call where the woodstove hooks in at the wall). Having multiple inlets or thimbles on a single flue is against code. Each thimble must have it's own flue. So if you wanted to use the old chimney in that case, if it was structurally sound you would have to get it lined and block off all the other thimbles in that flue.Thanks to everyone for the info in this thread. It explains my situation.
My house was built in 1916 and the chimney is completely closed off. There is no sign of a fireplace ever being in any room, so the house was set up for woodstoves. The holes for a woodstove exhaust duct have been covered by paneling in every room that had a corner on the chimney, and the chimney not having a liner (or otherwise not meeting insurance requirements) probably explains why. The house was later set up with an oil-fired boiler and radiators for heat.
When I bought that house they claimed the one chimney had been redone and was lined. It was, but I found out after working on the house why. The old chimney had caught fire and it had almost burnt the house down. They caught it just in time, I was underneath and the floor joists around the chimney were charred a little bit, and some of them had been repaired. They must have contracted to have the chimney rebuilt, it was redone with chimney cinder block all the way up through the middle of the house with a clay liner.