Famco Flue Liner Replacement Nationwide

Famco Flue Liner Replacement: The Atlanta Owner’s Guide

If your Famco flue liner is cracked, corroded, or pulling away at the seams, we stock Famco-compatible replacement liner and can usually have the swap done within one visit. In Atlanta, replacing a Famco flue liner on a standard single-flue chimney typically runs $1,800 to $3,400 installed, depending on liner diameter, chimney height, and whether the old liner fights us on the way out. What you’ll see most often: flaking metal at the cleanout, a rust stain bleeding through brick, or the smell of smoke in rooms even when the damper’s closed.

Call (762) 320-6525

Famco made solid, dependable chimney products for years, and a lot of Atlanta homes still run their original Famco liners from the 80s and 90s. But stainless steel doesn’t last forever, especially in Georgia’s humidity cycle. Before you assume the whole chimney needs rebuilding, let’s talk about what actually fails and what it costs to make right.

Which Famco Models This Applies To

Famco produced both rigid stainless steel liners and flexible aluminum liners across several product lines, most commonly sold through HVAC and hearth distributors in the Southeast. The replacement path depends on what’s in your chimney right now, and the only reliable way to know is to look at it with a camera.

Rigid Famco liners (the straight, jointed sections) were common in masonry chimneys built before the 1990s. Flexible Famco liners (the corrugated tubes) often show up in newer installations or as retrofit liners pulled through existing flues. Neither is complicated to replace, but they require different approaches. A rigid liner comes out in sections and gets replaced with a measured stainless system, usually DuraFlex flexible liner from a brand we stock on the truck. A flexible Famco liner that’s failing gets pulled and a new properly sized liner drops in its place.

One Famco-specific gotcha we run into in Atlanta: many Famco liners were installed without a proper top plate or rain cap, so water runs down the outside of the liner for years before anyone notices. By the time the homeowner sees rust at the cleanout door, the liner’s already thinned in ways you can’t patch.

We’re an independent chimney service company. We’re not affiliated with Famco, and Famco no longer manufactures liners, so when we say “Famco replacement,” we mean a properly matched modern liner system that fits the same flue and does the same job, built from current stainless or aluminum materials from brands we trust: DuraFlex, HeatShield, Gelco, and Copperfield. If your Famco liner is still under someone’s warranty, we’ll tell you honestly whether a warranty claim makes sense before we sell you anything.

Signs Your Famco Flue Liner Replacement Is Failing

• Rust flakes in the firebox or cleanout. This is the earliest reliable sign. Stainless liners don’t rust, but Famco’s aluminum flexible liners do, especially in Atlanta’s long humid summers. Flakes of orange or gray metal at the bottom mean the liner walls are thinning.
• Smoke smell in rooms far from the fireplace. If the liner has a crack or a separated joint, smoke escapes into the chimney cavity and finds its way through the brick, into wall cavities, and out somewhere you didn’t expect. This is also a carbon monoxide path, so it’s one we treat seriously.
• Visible staining on exterior brick. Roofline stains, white efflorescence, or dark streaks down the chimney face often mean moisture is getting between the liner and the masonry. In Atlanta’s freeze-thaw cycles, trapped moisture does accelerated damage.
• The fireplace drafts poorly or back-puffs on windy days. A liner that’s collapsed, kinked, or broken changes the flue’s draw. You’ll notice smoke rolling into the room when the wind shifts, or the fire just won’t stay lit the way it used to.
• You hear metal rattling during heavy rain or wind. Loose liner sections shift. That sound is the liner moving inside the flue, and movement means the joints are compromised.

None of these are subtle once you know what you’re looking at. Cory Mitchell and the crew catch liner failures all the time on chimneys where the homeowner called us for something else entirely, like a damper replacement or a basic sweep. The camera tells the story.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

Here’s what we tell Atlanta homeowners: a Famco flue liner replacement on a typical single-story masonry chimney runs $1,800 to $2,800 when the existing flue is in reasonable shape for the job. Two-story homes, steep roofs, or chimneys that need scaffolding push toward $2,800 to $3,400. If the chimney also needs a new crown, new flashing, or brick repair, that’s separate and quoted line by line before any work starts.

Every replacement includes camera verification before and after so you see exactly what was there and what went in. You get a written price before anyone touches a tool, a written guarantee on the work, and if something fails within 365 days under our Done Right Promise, the second visit is free. That’s not promotional language. That’s the standard.

DIY or Call Us?

What you can safely do: inspect the firebox and cleanout with a flashlight, look for rust flakes, check for visible cracks by running a light along the liner’s interior from below, and take photos. I’d rather show you a photo of the problem than talk around it, so send us what you see and we’ll give you a straight read on what’s urgent and what can wait.

What you should not do: climb the roof. Pulling and replacing a flue liner means working at height, cutting liner sections to length, sealing joints correctly, and sizing the liner to your appliance. A mis-sized liner drafts wrong, and a poorly sealed one leaks carbon monoxide into the house. That’s not a handyman project. If you’re handy and want to save money, ask us about replacing the visible components yourself and leaving the rooftop and flue work to us. Some owners do the cleanout door and firebox cleanup while we handle the liner, and that’s a fine way to split the job.

If you’re seeing rust, smelling smoke, or just want a straight answer about your Famco liner, call (762) 320-6525 and we’ll get a camera in there.

Frequently Asked Questions