I have a 1956 rancher and chimney. I just moved into this house and had the previous owner install a flue liner due to the issues found during the chimney inspection. The first issue was the firebox + new flue liner caused some indoor smoking issues but I fixed that with a smoke guard strip. It came with some high temp RTV so I have some still on hand.
The second issue is yesterday I smelled some odor downstairs near the furnace. Looks like there is an ash dump. I didn't really think about it much when I started using the chimney because I don't use the ash dump but smelled some odor downstairs after burning some logs and found the clean out door was hidden behind a bunch of "stuff" leaning behind the furnace/air handler. I wonder if I hit the clean out door up top when cleaning previously and so stuff drifted down and now I detected the odor. Anyway, the door closes fine, but is not super secure in the cinder block cut out. It can just fall out of the hole if the "stuff" wasn't leaned against it. The clean out door looks to be in good shape, and I have no plans on using it (I'll clean the ashes up from up top) but to reduce odor can I just use silicone caulk to seal up the door to the cinder block down there? I won't seal the door itself because it latches ok. I am able to remove the clean out door and slide it out from behind the air handler but getting a drill or mortar back there would be impossible or extremely difficult. The clean out area itself didn't look like it had anything in it so I doubt this feature has been used much since the air handler was installed. It shouldn't be exposed to heat so I was thinking some plain ol silicon caulk or the left over smoke guard RTV, or perhaps even DAP concrete caulk. I was going to use the fireplace mortar repair but looks like that uses heat to cure so that's not an option.
I imagine one of those products should be sufficient to hold the door in place, and reduce any stray odor that may make its way down there. Since this involves fire I figured I'd ask just in case. So...what is the preferred method to installing a clean out door and securing the frame into the brick or cinder block?
The second issue is yesterday I smelled some odor downstairs near the furnace. Looks like there is an ash dump. I didn't really think about it much when I started using the chimney because I don't use the ash dump but smelled some odor downstairs after burning some logs and found the clean out door was hidden behind a bunch of "stuff" leaning behind the furnace/air handler. I wonder if I hit the clean out door up top when cleaning previously and so stuff drifted down and now I detected the odor. Anyway, the door closes fine, but is not super secure in the cinder block cut out. It can just fall out of the hole if the "stuff" wasn't leaned against it. The clean out door looks to be in good shape, and I have no plans on using it (I'll clean the ashes up from up top) but to reduce odor can I just use silicone caulk to seal up the door to the cinder block down there? I won't seal the door itself because it latches ok. I am able to remove the clean out door and slide it out from behind the air handler but getting a drill or mortar back there would be impossible or extremely difficult. The clean out area itself didn't look like it had anything in it so I doubt this feature has been used much since the air handler was installed. It shouldn't be exposed to heat so I was thinking some plain ol silicon caulk or the left over smoke guard RTV, or perhaps even DAP concrete caulk. I was going to use the fireplace mortar repair but looks like that uses heat to cure so that's not an option.
I imagine one of those products should be sufficient to hold the door in place, and reduce any stray odor that may make its way down there. Since this involves fire I figured I'd ask just in case. So...what is the preferred method to installing a clean out door and securing the frame into the brick or cinder block?
Most important to me is that I don't want to lose any draft from the chimney. The chimney is going to "pull" air from where ever it can get it and I don't want it pulling from the basement, I want it pulling from the stove. The other reason is that any creosote and soot that might flake off between my annual chimney cleaning will fall down into that area and I don't want any smell issues down in the basement.
