Unsure whether I'm getting scammed or not.
Converted from oil to gas boiler three years ago. Installer said I wouldn't need a steel liner but he was wrong, as some of the masonry crumbled till I put a steel liner in chimney. Installer ran the flue too close to a combustible wall, so I just failed inspection on a new water heater which runs into same flue.
Liner installer admits his mistake and will replace tee with a wye to get flue away from wall. But he won't just swap it out, saying the steel liner has to be tugged upward from top of chimney to replace tee with wye at bottom termination. Huh? So he says it's stuck in place due to further crumbling of mortar. This might be true, but sounds like he just wants to break more masonry inside the chimney. He wants $3000 for a new chimney when the simple swap of a wye for a tee costs almost nothing. Another chimney scammer on the loose, or is there really a reason to lift up the whole steel liner to swap out a part at the very bottom?