u/OriginalGreasyDave

I am slowly reconstructing and getting into a habitable state, a 150 year old cottage in the Czech Republic.

First, apologies if my technical terms are incorrect. I am trying to get a chimney which is 120 years old into a functional state to be used with a wood burning stove.

We're not planning on doing the lining ourselves- so it's not really a DIY question but I've no knowledge about chimney sweeping and repairwork and I've been unable to find any active subs that might be able to help apart from woodstoving. So if anyone has any experience or thoughts about chimney lining and what I'm about to describe, I'd be intersted to hear them

The house and chimneys have been used continuously but the chimney has not been well taken care of.

The chimney is not lined and measures 150mmx150mm.

We currently don't have the budget to demolish and reconstruct it from scratch. Instead I would like to put a 150mm steel flue in. We are in the process of buying a Regency Stove with a 150mm outlet. (Don't have the technical numbers handy, maybe f1150?)

I am in the Czech Republic and have consulted with two local chimney sweeps. Before lining the chimney, they want to do something known locally as chimney milling. Basically, a steel frame is strapped to the top of the chimney and a ball of chains is lowered into it and spun at high speed.

According to the locals, this vibrates the soot in the chimney free and will also “grind” the existing brickwork slightly to make it free of artifacts that will allow the smoothe insertion of the liner.

I can't post a youtube link but if you search youtube for "Frezovani komin" you can see what I'm talking about.

I am pretty doubtful for multiple reasons. Given the age of the bricks and mortar I'm sceptical that such a machine won't bring the whole chimney down. Tbh, the sweeps are talking about grinding the chimney to be 160 mm....so they intend to take 5 mm off each side.

We live in a region where there are thousands of these old cottages and old chimneys. The sweeps assure us that this is standard procedure. I've been trying to find information about it in being used in the west and can't find anything.

OF course, they're not willing to sign any kind of contract that will make them responsible for any possible problems or mishaps.

So my question is, what are the realistic other options. What would a chimney sweep in a more western country do? Should we be considering a narrower liner (140mm) and therefore a smaller stove?

I can't find any reference to “milling” a chimney in the UK or US. How do chimney sweeps install 150mm flues into older 150mm chimneys normally?

Thanks

Hi, not sure if anyone can help with this question - it's not so much about stoves but about getting a chimney into a usable state, so I apologise if I am off-topic

I am slowly reconstructing and getting into a habitable state, a 150 year old cottage in the Czech Republic.

First, apologies if my technical terms are incorrect. I am trying to get a chimney which is 120 years old into a functional state to be used with a wood burning stove.

The house and chimneys have been used continuously but the chimney has not been well taken care of.

The chimney is not lined and measures 150mmx150mm.

We currently don't have the budget to demolish and reconstruct it from scratch. Instead I would like to put a 150mm steel flue in. We are in the process of buying a Regency Stove with a 150mm outlet. (Don't have the technical numbers handy, maybe f1150?)

I am in the Czech Republic and have consulted with two local chimney sweeps. Before lining the chimney, they want to do something known locally as chimney milling. Basically, a steel frame is strapped to the top of the chimney and a ball of chains is lowered into it and spun at high speed.

According to the locals, this vibrates the soot in the chimney free and will also “grind” the existing brickwork slightly to make it free of artifacts that will allow the smoothe insertion of the liner.

It look likes this:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=frezovani+kominu

OR

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_vcUoIGxHqo

OR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlArfDYtoNE

I am pretty doubtful for multiple reasons. Given the age of the bricks and mortar I'm sceptical that such a machine won't bring the whole chimney down. Tbh, the sweeps are talking about grinding the chimney to be 160 mm....so they intend to take 5 mm off each side.

We live in a region where there are thousands of these old cottages and old chimneys. The sweeps assure us that this is standard procedure. I've been trying to find information about it in being used in the west and can't find anything.

OF course, they're not willing to sign any kind of contract that will make them responsible for any possible problems or mishaps.

So my question is, what are the realistic other options. What would a chimney sweep in a more western country do? Should we be considering a narrower liner (140mm) and therefore a smaller stove?

I can't find any reference to “milling” a chimney in the UK or US. How do chimney sweeps install 150mm flues into older 150mm chimneys normally?

Thanks

I am slowly reconstructing and getting into a habitable state, a 150 year old cottage in the Czech Republic.

First, apologies if my technical terms are incorrect. I am trying to get a chimney which is 120 years old into a functional state to be used with a wood burning stove.

The house and chimneys have been used continuously but the chimney has not been well taken care of.

The chimney is not lined and measures 150mmx150mm.

We currently don't have the budget to demolish and reconstruct it from scratch. Instead I would like to put a 150mm steel flue in. We are in the process of buying a Regency Stove with a 150mm outlet. (Don't have the technical numbers handy, maybe f1150?)

I am in the Czech Republic and have consulted with two local chimney sweeps. Before lining the chimney, they want to do something known locally as chimney milling. Basically, a steel frame is strapped to the top of the chimney and a ball of chains is lowered into it and spun at high speed.

According to the locals, this vibrates the soot in the chimney free and will also “grind” the existing brickwork slightly to make it free of artifacts that will allow the smoothe insertion of the liner.

It look likes this:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=frezovani+kominu

OR

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_vcUoIGxHqo

OR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlArfDYtoNE

I am pretty doubtful for multiple reasons. Given the age of the bricks and mortar I'm sceptical that such a machine won't bring the whole chimney down. Tbh, the sweeps are talking about grinding the chimney to be 160 mm....so they intend to take 5 mm off each side.

We live in a region where there are thousands of these old cottages and old chimneys. The sweeps assure us that this is standard procedure. I've been trying to find information about it in being used in the west and can't find anything.

OF course, they're not willing to sign any kind of contract that will make them responsible for any possible problems or mishaps.

So my question is, what are the realistic other options. What would a chimney sweep in a more western country do? Should we be considering a narrower liner (140mm) and therefore a smaller stove?

I can't find any reference to “milling” a chimney in the UK or US. How do chimney sweeps install 150mm flues into older 150mm chimneys normally?

Thanks

I am having a problem with internet throttling on my Lenovo LOQ 15AHP10.

I've tried the two solutions on the Bazzite doc page - turning power saving off and toggling iwd off. Neither had a noticeable effect. Using wpa_supplicant instead of iwd seems to allow higher bursts of data transfer but the drop outs and cuts still occur.

The problem is present when I use wifi, ethernet cable or a tethered wifi connection via my phone.

I imagine there's a driver conflict.... Can anyone give me any tips about what my next steps for looking for a fix should be? I'm a Linux newbie but I really don't want to go back to Windows.

I've got solid experience from when I was a youngster climbing in Cham and the Dauphinees and Dolomites (several seasons).

Had a family, haven't been up in the mountains climbing for years but now my son is getting into the sport and I'd like to pass on some of my knowledge while I still can.

We're located in Cz which has lots of single pitch sandstone and nothing at all for him to learn multi-pitch alpine techniques like climbing together, placing gear, setting up a solid belay, multi pitch abseils -pretty much the basics.

Next year, I'll take him to the Italian Dollies but this Summer we're heading to Rauris in Austria for a week. And I was hoping, weather permitting, to get a day trip in on a basic multi pitch route. I’ve never climbed in Austria and don't know where to begin looking for routes.

We're going to be based at Rauris. Ideally it'd be somewhere we can drive to in an hour, hike up to, climb and descend in a day - it doesn’t need to include a summit - a 5-6 multi pitch route (UIAA grade 4-5, UK grade 4a-4c max Alpine PD -AD) which we can take it easy on. He climbs very well on bolts but I'd like him to practice placing gear on a route that I feel he is safe on. I was looking at the Selbhorn and Hochkonig mountains - but I don't know where to find guides and route suggestions. There's a via ferrata up Selbhorn - which we might do - but via ferrattas won't give him a chance to learn rope work and gear placement which is what I need.

Any suggestions for a simple day route would be very welcome. My knees are completely screwed (be good to your knees, youngsters) so anything that doesn’t have a really long descent would be even better.