Wood fireplace Blues / Options to Salvage Fieldstone Fireplace

[snowbard_vt]

After buying a house, the last thing I thought would cause endless aggravation is a field stone fireplace. First problem discovered is that the chimney stack is to short, the fireplace is on the 2nd floor and in total the stack is 7' --- while the fireplace does work with clean fuel, this is less clearly than ideal. Less than perfect fuel and smoke comes into the house.

My plan was to have the fireplace chimney, either add 5' of steel exhaust to the existing chimney OR knock off the 2' of chimney above the roof line (yes, it is currently less than code height) and replace with 10' wood chaise chimney. Finish the project with a fireplace insert. But, I found out have steel walls inside the chimney (pictures attached). I'm assuming these are just a bad idea, perhaps corrosion or other issues. Perhaps my stone fireplace will become just stone at this rate.

I love having a wood fireplace, but I can not determine the best approach to salvage the fireplace. I'm hoping it doesn't require tearing the fireplace down. I've attached a few pictures, I'm hoping someone has some more specific ideas how to approach this problem.

 

[jeff_t]

Welcome.

That looks like a prefabricated steel fireplace and chimney system, with the stone for decoration. Which is a lot of stone, by the way. If it's on the second floor, what is supporting all that weight?

 

[bholler]

That looks like a heat form fire box in a masonry chimney with a liner in it. We need more pics and info to know for sure though but i am all but positive that is not a prefab

 

[snowbard_vt]

Welcome.

That looks like a prefabricated steel fireplace and chimney system, with the stone for decoration. Which is a lot of stone, by the way. If it's on the second floor, what is supporting all that weight?

There are cinder blocks in the center of the house, I assume the cinder blocks were added to support the weight of the stone. Yes, its a lot of stone. So, I'm assuming its a prefab steel fireplace.

The 1st floor of the house has a brick chimney (directly below the 2nd floor chimney), but they are just a fronting and behind them I can see the cinder block(the bricks go up to the ceiling, looking under the ceiling the bricks stop.

I'm assuming the steel prefab fireplace is not removable and is likely to rust? I see no deterioration so far.

 

[snowbard_vt]

That looks like a heat form fire box in a masonry chimney with a liner in it. We need more pics and info to know for sure though but i am all but positive that is not a prefab

I'll have to look up what a heatform firebox is. The mason who last visited noted there are clay tile liners in the chimney. The front glass (you can't tell from the picture) is not attached to the steel box. So, if it is heat form fire box is that a bad thing? As note before, the weight of the stone is supported by cinder blocks and yes there is a full traditional damper system (damper is at top of chimney). Is a heat form fire box worth keeping? Can/should I switch to a fireplace insert if it is not desirable?

 

[begreen]

Heatforms are fine. Here's some information on them. If you want to improve heating then an insert will help, but most are going to want more chimney. You might be better off putting an insert in the downstairs fireplace instead.

What room or area is the upstairs fireplace located in? How large an area is this? How open is that area to the rest of upstairs?

 

[snowbard_vt]

The upstairs room is an open living room and kitchen, its pretty wide open and is the most used room. There is probably plenty of air for the fireplace as there are numerous older windows and a full sliding door. The downstairs fireplace is rarely used, but I guess from a heating perspective it would be effective.

Ultimately, we would still have to solve the lack of draft due to a short chimney stack (7'). Could we just add a stainless steel 5' pipe on top of the masonry chimney above the house to get to a more reasonable draft level? 12' is on the shorter side, but the wind blows up hill (all the snow on our roof blows off the down hill side to the up hill side).

Thanks

 

[begreen]

How large an area would you want to heat with the insert? Yes, you could add 5-6 ft of class A (metal) chimney on top with and adaptor/anchor plate.

 

[Grisu]

What are the dimensions of the fireplace? It looks quite small in the pictures.

P.S. I think that is the link BeGreen wanted to post: https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/heatform/

 

[Wood Duck]

Why not put a real insert (that is, a stove built to fit inside a fireplace) with a liner extending from the insert up and out the chimney at least another 8 ft. That will give you an efficient wood burning appliance and you won't have to worry about the steel liner in the existing chimney. By the way, I don't see a problem with steel - most new stove liners are stainless steel.

 

[bholler]

Why not put a real insert (that is, a stove built to fit inside a fireplace) with a liner extending from the insert up and out the chimney at least another 8 ft. That will give you an efficient wood burning appliance and you won't have to worry about the steel liner in the existing chimney. By the way, I don't see a problem with steel - most new stove liners are stainless steel.

An insert will not address the short chimney issue. It looks to me like the fireplace has a stainless liner installed with a top sealing damper which there is nothing wrong with that setup but the chimney is still to short. And the liner also looks a little small which could aggravate the draft issue. I would have a sweep come out and look everything over and give you some options.