All glass "designer" fireplace to masonry hybrid conversion

[dmachado]

Hello all pyro friends,

I am posting this to let you know about my "designer" fireplace to masonry hybrid conversion, which is about 80% complete, with the cold season about a month away.

I hope I can get this finished by next weekend.

Basically, I took apart a stainless steel/ceramic glass 60 cm cube, and added a serious amount of firebrick to it, keeping the big glass front door and the metal structure intact.

The top of firebox has a built-in baffle made from firebrick and steel angle, and the rear side will still have 1/3 of glass for double sided view.

As soon as I finish it, I will post additional photos of the inside and maybe a movie of the first full burn (3-4 curing fires are in order first..).

It will feature enlarged primary air openings (it required an open door ignition for a few seconds) and secondary air steel tubes for testing purpose - note the cuts on the stainless steel front plate - this is not how it will look in the end...

Here are the pictures...

Last year's burning method with some firebricks inside (yes it's a top-down burn...):

Fitting the bricks after removing side and rear glasses:

The rear side will have only 1/3 of the glass:

The rear side is now almost finished:

I expect to more than double the amount of heat we'll get from this fireplace this winter.

The firebrick will be covered in tile in the future, but I want to watch it for cracks during its first season.

Regards, Daniel from Portugal.

 

[milleo]

Sounds very interesting and keep posting as you go, I will be excited to see how it all works out.

 

[dmachado]

Hello again,

With the first cold days showing up, I lit the almost finished fireplace.

The first burn was mostly kindling, and the second almost smokeless burn put out a nice amount of heat. The first tests are passed.

The angled bricks you can see in the front concentrate the embers on the middle of the floor, so no smoking pieces of wood are scattered at the end of the burn.

The rear glass puts out less heat than the front one, as intended, and the stainless steel structure has no measurable thermal expansion, since it is shielded from heat by the bricks - this is what I want to check carefully as I increase the burn size during the next few days.

4 hours after I lit this medium size fire the 16cm/6.2in refractory wall hit 45-50ºC/113-122ºF, 8 hours after that it was still warm to the touch at 30ºC/86ºF. This turns into a [250kg/550lbs refractory + 200 kg/440lbs] brick+concrete radiator after the burn is over, not bad at all.

The next steps are lighting a big size 8 log burn, no recharge, and then in the colder weather to light a big burn with 2-3 logs recharge, to see how the structure handles the extra heat.

I am very happy and confident with this conversion, I only spent about 70 euro/90 USD on it, and I expect to get much more than that from it.

 

[begreen]

Thanks for the update Daniel. Is that pyroceram (Robax) glass?

 

[dmachado]

Hello, yes it is ceramic glass, all 4 sides were. It has a slight tint to it, and it was surprisingly easy to cut to size and sand the edges to fit the smaller opening.

Temperatures are dropping fast here, so the 8 log, top-down, vegetable oil sprinked kindling burn is scheduled for tonight , I'll make sure I take some photos.

 

[dmachado]

Hello, yes it is ceramic glass, all 4 sides were. It has a slight tint to it, and it was surprisingly easy to cut to size and sand the edges to fit the smaller opening.

Temperatures are dropping fast here, so the 8 log, top-down, vegetable oil sprinked kindling burn is scheduled for tonight , I'll make sure I take some photos.

Yesterday I saw this guy posting he had temperatures -15F (), and I just laughed at my statement "temperatures are dropping fast here"... never mind that...

 

[dmachado]

Just an update, I refitted the bricks in the ceiling of the firebox and added an extra one to limit draft. You can see the two exits that converge to a single one in the ceiling above this one.The fire burns hotter and the heat from the fireplace can be felt further away than before.

Since the fireplace is burning much hotter, all the bricks are white, no creosote or burn marks can be seen... all I need to do is clean some clay mortar still visible at some joints, and keep it burning.

 

[dmachado]

Last saturday I took apart the inside layer of the firebox and eliminated the 5-10 mm air gap I had left there to prevent cracking on the outside wall. I mortared everything together (refractory clay + lime + sand).

4 hours after a medium size burn the outer wall was above 60ºC/140ºF, about 25% hotter than before. Last year I could stand about a meter away from the fireplace to feel very warm, now it's impossible to stand there, the heat coming from the glass is surprinsingly hotter, if this is correctly stated.

Before, I had outer wall temperatures around 65ºC/150ºF after burning a 6 + 2 logs recharge, so I expect to get the outer wall above 80ºC/175ºF tonight burning the same quantity.

I am really happy with this upgrade.