Went to a small town in upstate New York and saw something wild in their old chimneys

I was visiting family near Hudson last month and got talking to a guy who restores old brick fireplaces. He showed me three different houses where the original clay flue liners were still intact from the 1800s. One of them had a weird curve near the top that must have been built around a support beam that's long gone. Has anyone else seen these old clay liners holding up that well in their area?

3 comments

3 Comments

carter.gavin22d ago

Wait, are you sure those are original liners and not 20th century repairs?

brian32821d ago

Had a buddy who got into restoration work and he showed me how they can tell the difference just by looking at the patina and tool marks. Said the 20th century repairs never quite match the original texture.

uma_martinez2d ago

The one the guy showed me in Rhinebeck had a perfect zigzag joint pattern that was supposedly typical of a local pottery family from the 1840s. He was really specific about how the tool marks from that era had a distinct drag that later repairs never replicated. What did the patina look like on the one you saw near Hudson? I'm trying to figure out if there's a consistent difference between original 1800s clay and the replacements from the 1920s that some of those catalogs were pushing.