[For more information and back-story on our remodel saga see
our original page about the rebuild/remodel as well as
other posts about the rebuild.]
Last Wednesday (2/28), I stopped by the house to pick up something (shampoo, of all things). When I walked in, the house felt rather cold. A thermometer confirmed it: the house was at a balmy 20 degrees. The heater had stopped running. Thankfully, one of the tubs had leaked, relieving pressure on the pipes. We don't think any pipes broke. The water is now off, and the two valves in the house that had not frozen are open.
Investigating in the furnace room, it seemed that the airflow out the chimney had been stopped or restricted, and thus the heat had shut down, but not before blowing an decent amount of soot into the rest of the house (this is a forced-air furnace).
So, time to call a chimney repair person. He came out Saturday (3/3) to take a look. Within about 20 minutes, I was back over at the house because there was nothing he could do. The entire inside of the chimney had failed (liner failure) and there was no airflow through the chimney. The only thing to do: replace the entire thing. We're currently waiting on a quote from from Patrick at Alaska Chimney Service.
The cause of failure? Improper repair by the previous owner. As Patrick was investigating the cause of failure, he found that a hole in the portion of the chimney exiting the house (before the ninety degree joint that turned the chimney vertical). This hole, instead of being repaired, was instead covered with heavy tar paper. This hole then allowed large amounts of moisture to enter the chimney and eventually cause massive liner failure. Not only was this repair very dangerous, it was also illegal (against code) and the house never should have been sold with this repair in place. We wil be investigating our legal options with this one.
