Sweep & inspection
Caps & crowns
Masonry repairLevel 1 sweep and inspection to the NFPA 211 annual standard - flue, crown, cap, and flashing checked and photographed
Chimney sweep logs do not sweep chimneys. They loosen some creosote - which then falls where a brush and vacuum still have to collect it.
Famco Flue Liner Replacement: The Yonkers Owner’s Guide
We stock and install Famco-compatible flue liner replacement parts throughout Yonkers, with most complete liner swaps running between $1,800 and $3,400 installed depending on flue height, access, and whether the existing liner needs extraction first. Homeowners typically discover their Famco liner has failed during a routine sweep, when the camera shows rust-through, a separated seam, or creosote between the liner wall and the masonry. In many Yonkers homes, especially older builds near Ludlow and Park Hill, that discovery happens after a puff-back puts soot across the living room floor. The good news: we carry Famco replacement components on the truck, and most jobs complete in a single visit.
Which Famco Models This Applies To
Famco builds their flue liners in flexible stainless steel, available in standard diameters covering nearly every wood-burning setup in Yonkers: 5.5-inch for stoves, 6-inch for most open fireplaces, and 8-inch for larger fireboxes. The compatibility gotcha most owners hit is wall thickness. Famco’s economy line uses lighter-gauge steel that can burn through in as little as eight to ten years in NY winters, while their heavier 316Ti alloy liner routinely lasts twenty-plus. That’s the first thing we check when we quote a replacement: what wall thickness your original unit shipped with, because swapping to the heavier alloy changes the inside diameter slightly and affects draft. If your Famco liner was installed before roughly 2015, the model stamp on the top plate or the flex body itself will tell us what we’re matching. For most homes, we recommend the 316Ti replacement over the original lighter gauge, even on stoves, because the flue temps run hotter there than anywhere else.
Styles & brands we work with



Signs Your Yonkers Famco Flue Liner Is Failing
- Soot collecting on the hearth after a fire: A pinhole in the liner lets combustion gases escape sideways into the chimney cavity instead of up and out. What settles back down looks like dust, but it’s soot, and that’s not normal.
- Rust flakes at the cleanout door: The liner sweats during Yonkers freeze-thaw cycles each winter, and once the inner wall starts rusting, it flakes downward. Finding heavy rust at the bottom almost always means replacement, not repair.
- A burning smell that shifts between sweet and acrid: This is creosote (the flammable tar residue from wood smoke) finding its way into the gap between liner and masonry. A hairline crack gives it a path, and that’s a chimney fire risk.
- Visible smoke weeping from the mortar joints of the chimney exterior: That’s an advanced sign. The liner has failed completely in at least one section, and combustion gases are pushing through the brick itself.
- Odd draft behavior, like the fire dying when you open a window: A failing liner can create negative pressure inside the flue. It’s not just annoying; it means the venting system isn’t doing its job at all.
See the difference
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After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
For Famco-compatible flue liner replacement in Yonkers, you should expect $1,800 to $3,400 installed. The low end covers a straightforward single-story flue with clean extraction and a lighter-gauge liner; the high end is a full two-story chimney with the original liner rusted into fragments that need pulling, plus a top plate and cap kit. That’s the parts-plus-labor number, and here’s the part most companies won’t say: we’ll give you a written price before any work starts, and that’s the number you pay. No add-ons when the tech finds something else. No “while I’m up here” surprises. Your quote includes the liner, the top plate, the connector, the labor, and disposal of the old liner. Every repair we do carries a 365-Day Done Right Promise: if the fix fails within a year, we come back and make it right, free.
DIY or Call Us?
You can absolutely check a few things yourself. Pull the cleanout door and look for rust flakes. Shine a flashlight up the flue from below. If you’re handy, take the top cap off and look down with a strong light. But installing a flue liner means working from the roof, dropping 20 to 35 feet of flexible steel down a narrow masonry chase without tearing it, then locking and sealing it at both ends. The danger isn’t just the ladder; it’s the gas leak that happens when a DIY liner doesn’t seat properly at the connector. Carbon monoxide follows that mistake home. That’s the line. Our techs do this specific Famco-compatible replacement multiple times a month, and we’ll text you photos of the old liner’s rust-through and the new one in place before we climb down. Call us at (914) 233-3156 and we’ll get a tech to the roof with a camera.
FAQs
A Famco 316Ti stainless liner in a well-maintained Yonkers chimney lasts 20 to 25 years; the lighter-gauge Famco liners often fail after 8 to 12 years of regular winter burning. Your burn frequency matters more than age. If you burn three cords a year and never miss a fall sweep, you’re still looking at replacement around the 15-year mark. Call (914) 233-3156 and we’ll camera the liner and give you the honest readout.
Small pinholes near the top can sometimes be patched with a stainless wrap, but any separation, rust-through mid-flue, or sag means full replacement. Patch jobs on flexible liner joints tend to fail within two years, and you’d be paying for labor twice. If we tell you it can be repaired, we’ll show you the camera footage that backs that up.
Most single-story Yonkers flues take 3 to 4 hours from setup to final photo. A two-story job with a fractured old liner that needs extracting can run 6 to 7 hours. We’ll give you a written time window before we start, and you’ll get before-and-after photos of the entire liner run while we’re still on site.
We stock Famco flex liners in 5.5-inch, 6-inch, and 8-inch diameters on the truck, along with top plates, connectors, and cap kits. If you need a less common size, we’ll have it from our local Yonkers supplier within a day or two. The exact liner we’re installing goes into your written quote by model and spec.
Written by Cory Mitchell, Owner, Hadley Chimney Yonkers at Hadley Chimney Yonkers, serving Yonkers and nearby areas.