T
todgerdelburro
Guest
I like exhausting up chimneys for a number of reasons.
For security, it is the most obvious and innocent place for LEO to see a stream of hot air pumping out of your house, any other place and no matter how stealthy, it lights up the various Infa Red systems they often use.
Secondly, the smells, years before Carbon Filters became available I used to grow with no filter, Ozone, nothing, all because my vent went out 10M above street level. The odour does not [usually] drop, hunters use 6M high seats to wait for Deer and Foxes, both animals with excellent senses of smell.
How to do it .....
My experiences apply to English 3 bed 1930s brick built semis, but hopefully some or all will apply to most people.
To make a 6" hole to take ducting in your chimney, get a lump hammer and cold chisel and carefully start chipping away the mortar around 2 or 3 bricks. If
the building is in decent condition this should be no problem, I have failed to collapse any chimney stacks on myself to date but you never know....
Right, you now have 3 bricks out and a hole that will more than take a 6" duct. Get hold of a proper rigid steel 6" 90 degree bend duct, 'L' shaped pipe .....very cheap from ventialtion suppliers, plenty around on scrapheaps.
Take your 'L' shaped 90 degree bend and put it in a large HD rubbish sack so one end of the L pipe is at the bottom of the sack.
Tie some string tightly around this the end of the pipe, then cut out the 'drum' bit that was stretched tightly accross the bottom.
You now have a 6" 90 degree ventilation duct wearing a fetching black plastic skirt on it's outside, held on at the top by a 'string belt'.
Stick this into your new chimney hole with the 'string belt' end first and get it into position. This means, so the top fires your air directly up, the bottom, directly into your room.
Now the clever bit, get a can of expanding foam and stick the nozzle between the duct and the skirt, it fills up, keeping the foam away from the bare chimney
[a small detail, but just wait till you try to clean that crap off...]
You have your 90 degree ducting taking care of the entrance and turning upwards, solidly and silently fitted into your chimney in a way that you can easily dismantle and repair to original when you need to. Controlled by the foam trapped inside the plastic skirt, the top bit you can no longer see should still have a full unhindered exit, much harder if you just let the foam run wild.
Obviously, keep the old bricks handy & learn a little bit about cement & mixes, so you can make the repairs easily and invisible.
I hope this is clear, please ask if anything is not.
For security, it is the most obvious and innocent place for LEO to see a stream of hot air pumping out of your house, any other place and no matter how stealthy, it lights up the various Infa Red systems they often use.
Secondly, the smells, years before Carbon Filters became available I used to grow with no filter, Ozone, nothing, all because my vent went out 10M above street level. The odour does not [usually] drop, hunters use 6M high seats to wait for Deer and Foxes, both animals with excellent senses of smell.
How to do it .....
My experiences apply to English 3 bed 1930s brick built semis, but hopefully some or all will apply to most people.
To make a 6" hole to take ducting in your chimney, get a lump hammer and cold chisel and carefully start chipping away the mortar around 2 or 3 bricks. If
the building is in decent condition this should be no problem, I have failed to collapse any chimney stacks on myself to date but you never know....
Right, you now have 3 bricks out and a hole that will more than take a 6" duct. Get hold of a proper rigid steel 6" 90 degree bend duct, 'L' shaped pipe .....very cheap from ventialtion suppliers, plenty around on scrapheaps.
Take your 'L' shaped 90 degree bend and put it in a large HD rubbish sack so one end of the L pipe is at the bottom of the sack.
Tie some string tightly around this the end of the pipe, then cut out the 'drum' bit that was stretched tightly accross the bottom.
You now have a 6" 90 degree ventilation duct wearing a fetching black plastic skirt on it's outside, held on at the top by a 'string belt'.
Stick this into your new chimney hole with the 'string belt' end first and get it into position. This means, so the top fires your air directly up, the bottom, directly into your room.
Now the clever bit, get a can of expanding foam and stick the nozzle between the duct and the skirt, it fills up, keeping the foam away from the bare chimney
[a small detail, but just wait till you try to clean that crap off...]
You have your 90 degree ducting taking care of the entrance and turning upwards, solidly and silently fitted into your chimney in a way that you can easily dismantle and repair to original when you need to. Controlled by the foam trapped inside the plastic skirt, the top bit you can no longer see should still have a full unhindered exit, much harder if you just let the foam run wild.
Obviously, keep the old bricks handy & learn a little bit about cement & mixes, so you can make the repairs easily and invisible.
I hope this is clear, please ask if anything is not.