Expert: James Ball - 10/28/2008

Question
A chimney sweep/repair company wants to reparge our fireplace by cutting a
hole in the chimney from the outside and parging the firebox then placing an
concrete access door/panel in the resulting hole in the chimney; I can not find
any reference to this approach to making this kind of repair and what to know
if this was a legitimate method for parging the firebox of the fireplace.  The
repairs would also consist of a new crown, re-brick top three score of stack,
rework masonof the rake, parge the firebox, this on a 55 year old mason
chimney and would like to know about this method of parging before signing
contract.

Answer
Hello Jim, I do not like the idea of a access door in the fire smoke chamber. I do a process called Smoke Tite, it shoots a slurry type cement mix up in the the smoke chamber to coat it and dry's rock hard (cement) and you don't have to do any thing but take the damper out and put it back when your done (other than drop cloths and clean up).
I just spoke to Smoke Tite and they will only recommend Thermo Creete (sister product ) to customers as there is no factory training for Smoke Tite and they do not trust some of the guys doing it (my self excluded) you could call them and ask if they have a Thermo Creete installer in your area (you could try for a Smoke Tite installer but might not get any help there) there web page is http://www.smoktite.com/index.html
Other sweeps use a product called Chamber Tech that is installed with a plunger type trowel.
keep me posted
James Ball