Flue damper, what's it for?

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Well, you don't want to fill the entire fireplace, your stove will get too hot. Just the open space around the liner as far as you can reach.
Well yes that, but i should line the walls with it to the floor right? Buck closes at 430, so i sent them a fb message, hope to have an answer for min clearances tomorrow
 
Here's a shot up the chimney
Bingo! No block off plate. If you are feeling foggy it would be nice to get a pic outside where the liner comes through the anchor plate he installed to transition to pipe. I can't fathom an installer thinking no block off plate would be sufficient. Makes me start to question the rest of his work.

Someone help me out here - what am I seeing.

It looks like flex pipe, elbowing 90° into the chimney? Is that right?

If so - what is (or isn't) above that?

This has been a most interesting thread - I have to think there is a lot of heat going straight up here. But not really sure what's 'up there'. Can you get a temp reading on some other surfaces in this space? Like, the one at the very top?
You are looking above the insert in then fireplace alcove, up towards the chimney cap. I asked for this pic so we can understand where heat might be going. The fireplace was town down to be about 8' tall on the exterior of the home. The installer ran the flex pipe up the chimney (what's left) then installed an anchor plate of some sorts and connected the flex pipe to class A chimney pipe to the roof line.
 
Agree with Marshy. A lot of the heat goes up in the smoke chamber of the fireplace. A block-off plate at the bottom of the smoke chamber solves many problems. Done it myself last year, makes a huge difference!
 
If you climb the ladder to take a pic of the anchor plate, take your IR gun and shoot the masonry around at the top along the penetration to see how warm it is. Even if you don't go get on a ladder, just go outside with your ir gun and start taking measurements of the stone near the top and see how warm it is.
 
8 pages, eesh. Can't believe it took so long to get to this point, that setup has been screaming heat sucking heat sink at me for pages now. :)
 
WAIT A MINUTE.... You're outside....you have a stone chase around the firebox and they converted to a class A and then went through the roof or overhang??? Did the stuff a flexible stainless liner inside the class A?? Am I missing something here??? Is that a prefab fireplace? Something is amiss here.
 
Unless there is something I missed....again....that is NOT a code compliant chimney/fireplace/wood stove insert. Please tell me I missed another critical post that explains this.
 
How long had the stove been operating at that point?
2 hours or so

WAIT A MINUTE.... You're outside....you have a stone chase around the firebox and they converted to a class A and then went through the roof or overhang??? Did the stuff a flexible stainless liner inside the class A?? Am I missing something here??? Is that a prefab fireplace? Something is amiss here.
Im not sure if the flex goes all the way through, I didn't watch the entire install. If by pre-fab, you mean it was here when I moved in yes. The class A and the stove was not.
 
The guy that I hired to install it, by all means has great reviews and I found him on home adviser. I had 2 other quotes done, all saying they would do the same thing. This guy was the middle price so I went with him.
 
Why not extend the chimney with a 4 feet section? It will improve your draft.
The masonary part? I plan on rebuilding it up to the saufet in the spring. Its been VERY hard to find stone to match it. Question though, how does that affect draft? If the stoves only exhaust is the 8 inch pipe, and the rest of the chimney is concrete capped, plus im about to put in a block off plate, how would that matter?
 
The masonary part? I plan on rebuilding it up to the saufet in the spring. Its been VERY hard to find stone to match it. Question though, how does that affect draft? If the stoves only exhaust is the 8 inch pipe, and the rest of the chimney is concrete capped, plus im about to put in a block off plate, how would that matter?

I think you should add 4-8 feet or so to the Class A chimney pipe. That way the draft improves and your stove will perform a lot better. You should be 4-5 feet above the highest part of your roof.
 
I think you should add 4-8 feet or so to the Class A chimney pipe. That way the draft improves and your stove will perform a lot better. You should be 4-5 feet above the highest part of your roof.
Ahh, that. I was thinking of doing that actually. It already has braces. Is it as easy as popping the cap off and putting another piece on?