Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - Crack in fireplace flue

I had Chimney sweep come in this spring to clean it. I have not used the Fireplace insert at all this season . I wanted to get it cleaned to burn some wood I had.
They stopped the job when they discovered a small crack 1/8 inch in the second flue up on the inside wall. They did not charge me. Put a do not burn on the work order. They gave me a price to take the flues out and put a 8 inch round Stainless Steel insert in with a insulated wrap and a vermiculite filler.
The old flue is 8 by 13 rectangle.
Is ths the way to go to repair?

Deteriorating and cracked flues typically require relining of chimney. You might want to consider getting a couple more bids for relining the chimney. In addition to metal liners, there are also cast-in-place liners available today.

See: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/chimneyliners

A stainless steel liner is probably your safest and most cost efective way of repairing your fireplace.Unfortunately even a small crack in the tiles can create a fire hazzard.Anytime a insert is used in a masonary chimney it should be conected to a liner to help reduce the amount of creasote build up.When you have a insert that requires a 8 inch chimney to vent it and you put it in a 8x12 chimney it can not heat the flue up enough to create an efficiant draft, thus cousing the smoke to cool down to fast and stick to the flue walls.STAINLESS LINER IS THE WAY TO GO.HOPE THIS HELPS EX CHIMNEY SWEEP.

Just curious what type of insert it is. We had a Heatalater wood unit in the house we bought which I hated and we also had cracked flue tiles. My sweep quoted prices for relining but also suggested I look at replacing the unit because relining is only temporary and 10 yrs or so would have to be replaced. We ended up getting a wood insert a couple of years later that was much more effecient and didn't suck the heat out as much.

Stainless steel chimney liners have a lifetime warranty.

That is interesting to hear now as many told me only expect 10 years out of it but maybe that was the type being sold up here. Of course in our case it didn't make sense to spend that kind of money for a drafty ineffecient unit we had but everybodies situation is different.

When i took out my insert, I called my local inspector to see what was code. He said that the inside needed to be lined with something, or I can run stovepipe up the chimney. I decided stovepipe was the way to go. The next problem I ran into was the chimney wasn't straight up. There was a 45 in it. I went to my local fireplace/hot tub center, and got a kit. It included a flexible 6" stainless steel liner that I put down from the top, and kinda fished it through the 45. Works great, and the kit for a 1 story home is around $420.

I have a Carolina Stove Insert . I think it's about 20 years old .

You wont need an 8" liner . a 6-7 will draft fine garentee'd . Try to ask the to adapt a 6" to an 8 " increaser . And get them to buy an oval liner so that you dont need to remove the old tiles. Goin this way your looking at 1000-1100
Installed