We just had our chimney inspected (bought the house last May, the guy who said the general inspection said he couldn't get up in the chimney so we'd have to have someone else look at it before we used it). Of course the chimney inspector found some problems -- some gaps at the top of the chimney he'd fix for $200 (NBD), and apparently the chimney has gaps in it and needs a new liner, which he quoted for $1500. He also said the furnace flue -- which is apparently related to the chimney? -- has some gaps and needs to be relined for $1500.
The chimney stuff I would like to put off another year or two, as we just put ourselves on an uber-aggressive schedule to FINALLY pay off my student loans in 14 months. I'd rather just not use the chimney than turn that into 15 or 16 months. HOWEVER, he said the furnace gap could mean that we shouldn't really be using our furnace (uh, we are, its cold), and we are risking a carbon monoxide leak. We do have a carbon monoxide detector, but I'd rather not put my life in the hands of a fallable detector!
We're going to get estimates from a second person, but it'll take a few weeks I imagine before we can have someone come out. Is using the furnace in the meantime a terrible idea? I figure the previous owners were using it with this leak for a long time. The inspector of course immediately scared us with a story of a family in a nearby town who had a carbon monoxide leak and the detector failed and they nearly died (which made me trust the inspector a little less, immediately resorting to fear tactics, although maybe he also feels a responsibility to make sure people take the issue seriously?).
I'm wondering if it makes any sense to get the furnace flue relined in the time being, and put off the chimney flue a few years, or is this the sort of fix that should be done together? We have an emergency fund of 6K, but re-funding anything we pull out of it will slow down the loan pay-off. Given that its just about a year, we don't have kids, and worst case scenario of something else major going wrong with the house I'm pretty sure my parents would give us an interest-free loan, I'm thinking we'll pay for just the furnace flue to be relined and then just live with an e-fund of $4500 for a year...if we have extra money above my super-aggressive loan payoff schedule we may be able to refund it a bit, but there's not going to be much leftover.
