Famco Chimney Liner & Rebuild Nationwide

Famco Chimney Liner & Rebuild in Quakertown: What to Know First

Famco chimney liner and rebuild work in Quakertown typically runs $1,400 to $4,800 depending on whether we’re relining, repairing, or rebuilding the flue from the firebox up. Most Famco liner jobs take one full day. Some rebuilds take two or three. We’ll tell you the straight number before we start, and that number doesn’t change.

Call (484) 603-6713

This page is for Quakertown homeowners who already own a Famco liner or fireplace and need to know what’s failing, what it’ll cost, and whether it’s worth fixing at all. Wendell Pike built Top Hat Chimney in 1999, and we’ve worked on enough Famco systems across Bucks County to know exactly where they wear out and how to fix them right. Call (484) 603-6713 for a free estimate. Live person, every time.

How Famco Products Fail - and How We Fix Them

Famco makes decent equipment, but every brand has its weak spots. Here’s what we actually see on Quakertown roofs and inside Quakertown flues:

• Famco stainless steel rigid liners develop seam separation at the joints. Older 430-alloy liners, especially the ones installed in the early 2000s, corrode at the pop-riveted seams. The liner looks fine from the top, but a camera inspection shows gaps where flue gases leak into the chase. We replace these with 316L alloy and weld the critical joints. No more rivets to fail.
• Famco flexible liners kink at the smoke shelf transition. Whoever installed it years ago forced too tight a bend where the flex meets the clay tile. That kink catches creosote, restricts draft, and eventually cracks. We pull the flex, ovalize or re-angle the transition properly, and run a smooth one-piece liner instead of a two-piece patch job.
• Famco chimney caps and crown mount brackets have rust-through problems in wet seasons. Between Quakertown’s spring rains and freeze-thaw cycles, the galvanized brackets holding Famco caps rust at the bolt holes. The cap wobbles, water gets under it, and the crown starts spalling. We replace the brackets with stainless hardware and reseal the crown with a flexible crown coat. Not a cap problem - a bracket problem.
• Famco dampers bind after a partial rebuild. If mortar snot falls into the damper track during a firebox rebuild, the damper jams half open. We see this on Famco cast iron dampers in older fireboxes near Tohickon Creek. The fix is cleaning the track and re-hanging the damper plate, not replacing the whole assembly. A ten-minute fix if you know what you’re looking at.
• The chimney itself lets go around a perfectly good Famco liner. The liner is fine, but the brick above the roofline has cracked and shifted. Water gets in, soot builds up, and the crown starts crumbling. We rebuild from the roofline up: new brick, new crown, new wash, and the existing Famco liner stays right where it is. No reason to replace good parts.

Our Famco Chimney Liner & Rebuild Process

Here’s how a typical Famco job goes from first call to final sweep, the way Wendell and his crew run it:

1. 1
   We answer the phone. Not a call center, not a voicemail box. You’ll get a real person, and it may well be Wendell himself. He asks what you’re seeing, what you’re smelling, and what the last sweep found.
2. 2
   We come out and look. We run a camera down the flue from the top and up from the damper. You see the footage. We point at what’s failing and explain it in plain English, including whether it can wait or not.
3. 3
   We write the number down. Before a single tool comes off the truck. The price we quote is the price on the invoice. That’s the whole point of the way we work.
4. 4
   Parts: OEM where it matters, quality aftermarket where it doesn’t. For Famco liner sections, we use genuine Famco components when they’re available and priced sanely. For caps, brackets, and mortar, we’ll often go with DuraFlex stainless fittings or HeatShield resurfacing products, whichever fits the job better and holds up longer. Your warranty stays intact either way.
5. 5
   We do the work, then test it. Liner pulled and replaced, or the chimney rebuilt course by course. Then we run the camera one more time, fire the system, check the draft, and sweep up every last bit of mortar dust. We don’t leave until the floor is cleaner than we found it.
6. 6
   You get the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not right, one call brings us back. No arguing, no re-quoting. That’s been the deal since 1999.

What Famco Chimney Liner & Rebuild Costs in Quakertown

Straight numbers, the way Wendell would tell you at the hardware store on Broad Street. Your flue doesn’t care how the fire looks. It cares how it breathes. Here’s what breathing room typically costs around Quakertown:

• Famco liner repair (patch or reseal): $350 - $800
• Famco stainless steel liner replacement (flex, single story): $1,400 - $2,600
• Famco liner replacement plus crown repair: $2,200 - $3,800
• Partial chimney rebuild (roofline up, brick + crown): $2,800 - $4,800
• Full chimney rebuild (firebox to cap): $6,000 - $12,000+

Price moves on three things: height above the roofline, liner length and diameter, and whether the crown is still salvageable. Scaffolding on a steep Quakertown roof adds labor, and we won’t pretend it doesn’t. Call (484) 603-6713 for an exact quote. Estimates are free, and we’ll tell you if the job doesn’t need doing. If it doesn’t need doing, we’ll tell you that too.

Why Quakertown Homeowners Call Top Hat Chimney for Famco Work

Quakertown has a lot of older homes with beautiful brickwork and flues that haven’t been opened up since the first Bush administration. Ask anyone on your street. We’ve been at this since 1999, and Wendell’s name and license number are printed right on the estimate. That’s not an accident.

When we work on a Famco system, we bring the multi-brand backup that matters: DuraFlex for liner runs, HeatShield for resurfacing when a liner is too far gone to save but the chimney is too solid to tear down, and Gelco for chase covers that shed water the way they should. We’re an independent Famco service provider, not a factory arm, so we can pick the right part for the job instead of the part Famco happens to sell this quarter.

Every job ends with the camera footage, a plain-English verdict, and the 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. Every single time. No exceptions. We answer the phone at 3 a.m. if you smell smoke in the house. And we’ll be the ones standing on your roof, not a subcontractor we met four days ago.

FAQs