Insulate your unused chimney

Some years ago we had a fireplace, but we never used it that often, and there was always a cold draft from it when it was not in use. So we sold the fireplace (and got space for a home movie theater instead..) and sealed off the chimney. Much of the draft was gone, but last winter I noticed that the chimney was still very cold when touching it. Both on the ground floor, but even more on the first floor. No wonder when all that cold outside air fills the entire chimney.
So in preperation for this winter I made a simple unused chimney insulation. I used a total of seven plastic bags, each filled with some insulation material. After tieing the top of each plasticbag, I connected them all together with a string. Using a long stick a pushed the first one about 4 m ( 12 ft) down the chimney.

Then I pushed the next one a little bit shorter, and the next even shorter, and so on until the last one finshed it off right at the top of the chimney. This should defenitely slow down any cold air trying to go down the chimney this winter. Should we decide to get a fireplace in the future I can easy pull all the insulation bags out of the chimney using the string that interconnect them all.


Summary in Norwegian: En ubrukt pipe er en kald pipe. Du kan isolere pipa ved å trykke plastposer med isolasjon ned i pipa. Hvis du forbinder dem alle med et tau, så går det greit å få dem opp igjen hvis du skal bruke pipa igjen.