We are moving into a house with a fire-place.
The current tenants (friends of ours),
have been living there just short of 2 decades, and have never used it once.
The house is about 90 years old, so it certainly saw a lot of use once upon a time.
I myself rather enjoy a fire.
Though I've not lived in a house with one, since I was a kid.
Not really planning on using it for heating, but for a couple of times in the winter it would nice to be able to use it just for the enjoyment of the thing.
Is there anything I should do before using it?
Should I be worried about the chimney being blocked?
How would I go about inspecting for that?
Best Answer
You hire a chimney sweep to inspect (and clean) it. In some cases it may need to be completely rebuilt - in others, it may simply need cleaned and inspected, or it may need something in the middle.
At that age, you may well find that you'll face relining to make use of it under modern conceptions of what's safe - it will have deteriorated with age and probably was not built to standards that are considered safe these days in the first place.
There are ways to solve that problem, but which way is applicable will vary with the state of the chimney, and any work that might have been done to it in the 70 years before it was disused for 20 years, as well as what's been going on inside it for 20 years.