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Half Right
Many, many homes in Connecticut have brick and mortar chimneys. Many of these chimneys also have problems. A good portion of those problems are due to what has been going up the chimney. In Connecticut many homes use oil for heat. Before that coal. I still find old coal burning boilers in use that were converted to oil burners way back when.
Modern chimneys are built with clay flue liners. Before that, no liner, just the brick. An older home, a hundred years or more, will almost assuredly have an unlined chimney. Over those hundred plus years of burning coal and oil, the chimney takes a beating. The inside slowly but surely erodes from the corrosive gases mixing with rain water. The mortar becomes soft and loose, often falling from the joints like sand. I find it is important to probe the mortar, especially in the attic, as this seems to be the area where I find the most damage to the joints. There are times when the screw driver goes right through like a knife through butter.
Often there are soot stains from the combustion gases escaping from these porous, sandy joints.
It is obvious that when a chimney is ... more

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