[Deschodt]

Curious if anyone has experience with fireplace work or better yet work in the field...

We inherited one with the house we bought and at the time an inspection revealed a blanket "$5000 of repairs" needed to use it. Thought that was very high and never did anything, also never used it.... Recently we gave it another shot and had another guy look at it and he wants $4K ! Hey, going down ! Per the explanation, structurally it's fine, which is what gets me... there's a little caulking to do in the hearth for the grout ($15 a tube), the chimney itself needs a new rain cap, so far so cheap and... that's the part I struggle with.... he wants to line it all up with a new ceramic coating million degrees resistant, blah blah... they lower a big plug on a rope and pour that concrete like substance and pull up, down, a few times to reline the chimney). That's the $3000 part, which according to the video I saw, seemed really overkill to me...

Hear me out here, I don't want my house to burn down, but there's not cracks or gaps on the vid at all... Mostly this would smooth out the joints between the sections of the chimney where crap builds up... but he cleaned that... it's not like there's a gap or a hole... It would kinda be like porting a header (except in reverse) bu relining to improve air flow, per the guy.... but we're not smelting swords here, burning maybe one duraflame log 10x a year.

My retired neighbor talked to the guy after I had to leave to work and got the impression he was overbidding a lot too, the guy was oversharing about his costs... He witnessed the whole operation and told me he'd use the fireplace "as is" based on the video too... Then again, fire, house, recent post about house fire here... ehhh.... Just wondering if anyone has had a similar experience lately, are those guys famous for pulling overbids ? I can see the back half of the fireplace in my garage (straddles a wall between living room and garage) it looks brand freacking new... I'm not going to use risk using it, but I'm probably not paying that either, wondering if anyone knows the biz and can comment...