Playing With Fire

We heat our house with an oil-fired furnace; we also have an oil-fired hot water heater. Both of those appliances produce heat by burning oil and the exhaust goes up the chimney. We deal with one particular oil company because they’ve always treated us right: reasonable price on oil and a great service contract to cover anything that goes wrong. Part of their service includes a yearly inspection and tune up of the furnace and hot water heater. At that time, everything gets cleaned and tested to insure they’re working at peak efficiency.
We recently got a post card in the mail reminding us that our burners were due for service so I called up to make an appointment. While I was on the phone, the person I was talking to recommended having our chimney inspected – and possibly cleaned – by another company they work with. I know chimneys periodically need cleaning to prevent residues from building up inside which could cause a chimney fire, and I knew ours was overdue for a cleaning, so I agreed.

 Before my father was a licensed union electrician he was an oil burner repairman. I often watched him work on the system in the house I grew up in, and I remember him cleaning our own chimney. When Ro and I first bought our house I used to clean our chimney myself as well. It’s been many years since I did that, however, so I was interested to get a price from this new company. 

When the chimney company guy arrived, the first thing he did was open the metal door at the base of the flue (the inside of the chimney where the exhaust gases go). It’s where soot and residue land during a chimney cleaning, and it’s where these wastes are collected so they can be discarded. He proceeded to take photos up the flue with his camera on a long stick. 

The flue is actually comprised of numerous clay or tile blocks inside the chimney (the outside of which is usually built of bricks – the part that you see). As he was retrieving his camera, he noticed something inside this lower chamber and reached in to pull it out. It was a large chunk of the chimney flue, which had broken off at some point. There were also many smaller pieces. 

 If I hadn’t been there to see him take those pieces of the flue out, I might have thought he planted them there, because I knew immediately that our chimney couldn’t just be cleaned; it needed a new flue or liner. 

When the flue inside the chimney starts to break apart, it’s usually because of all the residue in the flue being affected by acids that form when water vapor (a by product of burning oil) reacts with the chemicals in the residues. They eventually eat away at the flue and the mortar that holds it together. If enough of the flue breaks apart, it could either clog the chimney, allowing carbon monoxide to build up inside the house, or cause a fire to start inside the chimney. Of course I knew this had to be fixed as soon as possible. 

I usually get at least three estimates before having any work done on our house or property but I liked this guy who was quoting me a price of $1,650 to reline our chimney with a new double-walled, stainless steel flue insert. After Googling the procedure online, and gathering all pertinent information on the subject, I found that the average price to perform the procedure on a chimney like ours was $1,500. He agreed to do the job for that price and I gave him the go-ahead.

(Stock photo found on the internet)

  You can’t put a price on peace of mind.

The Real Marshall Tucker

Unless you’re a die-hard Marshall Tucker Band fan, you could easily think the Southern Rock group was named for it’s lead singer or another member of the band. Not so, says a recent post in a Classic Rock blog that I subscribe to. It seems the real Marshall Tucker was a blind piano tuner who passed away recently, on January 20th, 2023, at the age of 99. The band mourned his passing as they prepare to embark on a 50th Anniversary Tour this spring  

It seems the band were practicing in an old warehouse, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, when they first formed in 1972. At that time they were called Toy Factory, after founding member, Toy Caldwell, but were not happy with the name. One day during practice, they found a key chain with Mr. Tucker’s name on it. It turned out that Marshall was renting space in that very same warehouse so he could repair and rebuild pianos there. The band were desperate for a name for their group and decided that Marshall Tucker had a nice ring to it, so they adopted the moniker for their own purposes.

 

(Photo found on the internet, photographer unknown)

 

In a 2020 interview with Mr. Tucker, writer Jack Lunn learned that Marshall never even knew the band had used his name until a friend told him. He said he really didn’t mind as long as they didn’t desecrate his name. In the long run, he said it helped his business as many young musicians sought him out to work on their pianos. Marshall Tucker actually was reported to have perfect pitch, meaning he could distinguish any note just by hearing it; only about one in 10,000 people have it.