Famco Flue Liner Replacement Nationwide

Famco Flue Liner Replacement: The Astoria Owner’s Guide

If your Famco flue liner has failed, we stock Famco-compatible replacement liner in the common 5.5×8 and 6-inch diameters and install it throughout Astoria, usually within a week of your call. Installed cost runs $1,800 to $3,400 depending on chimney height and access, which we’ll pin down before work starts. Most Astoria owners discover the problem two ways: rust flakes at the cleanout door after a rain, or a sweep’s camera showing a split seam halfway up a run they can’t see from the top.

Call (929) 822-6306

Here’s the honest picture: a failed flue liner is not a cosmetic issue. It’s the separation between your fire’s exhaust and the framing of your house. When that stainless wall gives out, you’re routing hot gases past mortar joints, lathe, and old wood. In Astoria’s attached rowhouses, the stakes don’t stop at your own wall. Wendell Pike has pulled enough corroded Famco sections out of prewar chimneys to know exactly what fails first, and it’s rarely the liner itself. It’s how it was installed thirty years ago.

Which Famco Models This Applies To

Famco made their name in flexible stainless chimney liner, mostly the 316L alloy grades sold through hearth shops in the 1980s through early 2000s. If your home still has an original Famco liner, you’re likely looking at one of two configurations: the single-wall corrugated flex, or the smooth-wall variant they sold for higher draft. Both have the same weakness at the same place-the seam where flex sections were joined with pop rivets, then wrapped in foil tape that was never meant to last three decades.

The easiest way to identify what you have is the label. Famco printed their name and diameter on a metal tag, usually near the appliance connector. If the tag’s long gone, measure the inside diameter of the liner at the top. Astoria homes with pre-1960 fireplaces typically run 6-inch or 8-inch. If you have an older coal-burning conversion, it might be 5.5×8 oval. We match those dimensions with current 316L flex liner from Trusted industry brands like DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, Olympia Chimney, Famco, and Copperfield, and we’re direct about it: the modern DuraFlex replacement outperforms the original Famco in just about every way. Heavier gauge, better alloy consistency, and a lifetime warranty from the manufacturer, not us.

One thing worth knowing before you buy anything: Top Hat Chimney is an independent service provider, not affiliated with Famco. We’re not selling you a Famco-branded part because Famco’s liner line hasn’t been produced in years. What we stock and install are current 316L liners that fit the same dimensions and carry better warranties than what originally went in. If someone offers you a “genuine Famco” replacement in 2026, walk away.

Signs Your Famco Flue Liner Replacement Is Failing

• Rust flakes or a gritty dark powder at the cleanout. That’s creosote mixed with corrosion from the liner wall. 316L stainless doesn’t rust quickly, but the riveted seams and foil-taped joints do. Once water gets behind that tape, the liner sweats and the seam starts to fail.
• Your damper sticks or won’t close fully. Moisture has gotten into the liner and is dripping down onto the damper assembly, rusting the mechanism. In Astoria’s salt air, this shows up faster than inland.
• You smell smoke inside the house on windy days. A compromised liner loses draft. The chimney can’t pull, and exhaust backs into the room. This is the one that sends people to the phone.
• You see daylight or a pinhole when you shine a flashlight up from the firebox. If light can get in, exhaust can get out. The liner’s integrity is gone at that point, and no amount of patching brings it back.
• Your water heater shares the flue and the CO detector near the utility room has gone off. A failing liner doesn’t just affect the fireplace. If your gas water heater vents into the same chimney, you’re looking at a carbon monoxide path into the house, and that’s an emergency, not a tune-up.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

For a standard two-story Astoria rowhouse, a Famco flue liner replacement runs $1,800 to $2,600. Three-story buildings or anything requiring roof staging land closer to $2,800 to $3,400. What drives the difference is access: how steep the roof pitch is, whether we need a ladder or a lift, and whether the old liner comes out in one piece or twenty.

Here’s what’s included in that number, and what’s not:

• Removal of the old Famco liner, including any sections still hanging in the flue.
• New 316L stainless flue liner, sized to your exact diameter and length, with a lifetime manufacturer warranty.
• Rain cap and top plate, installed and sealed at the crown.
• Camera inspection before and after, so you see the old liner’s failure and the new liner’s path. The camera footage and a plain-English verdict-every time, no exceptions.
• Our 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not done right, we make it right. One call brings Wendell back.

You’ll get the exact price before a single tool comes off the truck. Not an estimate. The number you hear on the phone is the number on the invoice.

DIY or Call Us?

You can change the batteries in your CO detector and shine a flashlight up the flue. That’s about where safe DIY ends. Flue liner replacement involves working on a roof, handling stainless coil that fights you when it unspools, and pulling corroded sections out of a chimney that hasn’t been opened since the Reagan administration. One slip on a wet Astoria roof, and this stops being a chimney repair and starts being a hospital bill.

We’re not telling you this to sell you the job. We’re telling you because we’ve seen too many well-meaning owners try to save a few hundred dollars and end up with a liner kinked halfway down the flue, a dropped tool through a neighbor’s skylight, or worse. If you want to prepare the fireplace for us-clear the hearth, move anything fragile-that helps. But the liner itself? That’s a job for someone who’s been up on rooftops within earshot of the N train more times than they’d care to count.

If it needs doing, we’ll do it. If it doesn’t, I’ll tell you that instead. Call (929) 822-6306 and we’ll talk through what you’re seeing.

FAQs

Contact Top Hat Chimney

If your Famco liner is showing any of the signs above, or you just want someone to camera the flue and tell you the truth, call (929) 822-6306. Live person answers, around the clock. We’re local, we’re licensed and insured, and we’ve been on Astoria rooftops since 1999. Free estimate, no trip charge inside the county, and if you’re a senior or veteran, take 10% off the top. Call us and ask for Wendell.