Flexible vs Rigid Chimney Liner - What's the Difference?

Posted by juliabennet on June 24th, 2011

When the purchase of a chimney liner is concerned, the cylindrical mental chimney liner could be the most preferred one. Available in the form of flexible and rigid chimney liners, these are quite effective and safe to be used for every household. Rigid liners are the ones that can be assembled from different sections of the pipe and further lowered inside its flue. On the other hand, the flexible liners have been made of the continuous size or length of its corrugated tubing installed within the flue. There are several points of differences between a rigid chimney liner and a flexible chimney liner, which includes its cost, installation features and the situations in which these could be used appropriately.

Metal chimney liner is usually easier to install within the clay tile liner, or even inside the unlined chimney for sealing the flue as a measure to protect the home and prevent against dangerous gases and from leakage. However, clay tile chimney liner tends to deteriorate gradually due to corrosive condensation as a result of the combustion production, weathering and the foundation that settles down gradually.  Tile liners are easily repairable and can also be replaced if required. However, this would require pensive brickwork. Using metal chimney liner certainly seems to be a much better and more economic choice in the long run.

The mental chimney liner type that would be appropriate for a household would depend on carious factors; physical configuration is one such factor that has vital importance in this context. The metal chimney liner can be extended right from the upper part of a chimney through the vent of a fireplace, furnace, and woodstove or fuel burning appliances. If the chimney has been placed right from the top through bottom, it would be wise to choose the rigid chimney liner. If flue is otherwise offset, or has some bends from the top to bottom, flexible liner should be working best.

Other materials used for rigid chimney liner is less expensive when compared to materials used for the flexible chimney liner. However, the labor costs should be taken into consideration when the cost of the chimney liner should be estimated. For the short and straight flue that does not require any complications with the joint work, the rigid chimney liner will be best and cheapest. However, flue with some offsets would often require some skilled pipe fittings along with other specialized parts for building rigid chimney liner with proper sealing for the safety of operation. Also, the cost of labor involved in the process of installing a small and single flexible chimney liner piece in crooked flue would be much cheaper than that of the rigid liners.

The costs of flexible and rigid chimney liners also vary dramatically. Always consider the variations of models and parts before finally choosing a chimney liner.

The choice between rigid chimney liner and flexible chimney liner should not be difficult with all the information at home.