Hampton HI300 Insert Install (pics)

[jjmac1235]

Placed the order today for Hampton HI300 Insert. Placed separate order for 25” pre_insulated liner and parts. Should be here in a week or two. Going to attempt a bottom up install with the liner. Its just me and the old lady and the Chimney is 8ft high. So without a boom it will be hard to do top down. If it doesn't work, I will suck it up and rent the boom.

House is new to me. Chimney is 8ft high.:



Old Fuego insert was in the fireplace. 1979



Fuego Removed:



Damper was missing and Chimney looks nasty:



Damper Cut out. Took 3 minutes with a Sawzall:



Spent the better part of the morning scrapping and cleaning the smoke box.

Pretty much as clean as I can get it. Would a Chimney Sweep do any better? The quote I got was $230. Trying to save money and I really don’t want to pay a guy to come here and tell me he can’t get it any cleaner. I scrapped with a hoe and various brushes. All the big stuff is out. Looks like level 3 creosote gel is the only stuff left. A light coating on most areas of the smoke box. Think I am good for the liner install?



This is what I scrapped off. This doesn’t include the 5 gallons of crap that was up on the smoke shelf. Real lucky this house didn’t burn down:



More to come….

 

[darktower007]

Great post! Thanks for sharing looking forward to the progress!

Oh... so the iron baffle wasn’t too bad to cut out? I have to do the same with mine.


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[begreen]

Oh... so the iron baffle wasn’t too bad to cut out? I have to do the same with mine.

Save the cut out piece, maybe put it under the insert or at the back of the fireplace so that a future owner has the option of welding it back in if they so choose.

 

[bholler]

Placed the order today for Hampton HI300 Insert. Placed separate order for 25” pre_insulated liner and parts. Should be here in a week or two. Going to attempt a bottom up install with the liner. Its just me and the old lady and the Chimney is 8ft high. So without a boom it will be hard to do top down. If it doesn't work, I will suck it up and rent the boom.

House is new to me. Chimney is 8ft high.:

View attachment 234903

Old Fuego insert was in the fireplace. 1979

View attachment 234904

Fuego Removed:

View attachment 234905

Damper was missing and Chimney looks nasty:

View attachment 234906View attachment 234907View attachment 234908View attachment 234909

Damper Cut out. Took 3 minutes with a Sawzall:

View attachment 234910

Spent the better part of the morning scrapping and cleaning the smoke box.

Pretty much as clean as I can get it. Would a Chimney Sweep do any better? The quote I got was $230. Trying to save money and I really don’t want to pay a guy to come here and tell me he can’t get it any cleaner. I scrapped with a hoe and various brushes. All the big stuff is out. Looks like level 3 creosote gel is the only stuff left. A light coating on most areas of the smoke box. Think I am good for the liner install?

View attachment 234911

This is what I scrapped off. This doesn’t include the 5 gallons of crap that was up on the smoke shelf. Real lucky this house didn’t burn down:

View attachment 234912

More to come….

I would get it allot cleaner than that

 

[jjmac1235]

Great post! Thanks for sharing looking forward to the progress!

Oh... so the iron baffle wasn’t too bad to cut out? I have to do the same with mine.

Not at all. I was dreading it and was happy to see the sawzall went threw it like butter. I was a little gentle with the firebrick, but I think once the insulated pipe gets here I will have to chip some of the firebrick back.

 

[jjmac1235]

I would get it allot cleaner than that

Any advice how? I scraped it with hoe and then a hand scraper and then a floor scraper. After that I used a steel brush. After that a poly brush. After that vacuumed everything. The pics are deceiving. A lot of what appears to be caked creosote is actually mortar. That said, there is most definitely a thin glaze of shiny creosote on almost everything. Any advice?

How hot will my insulated liner get?

 

[bholler]

Any advice how? I scraped it with hoe and then a hand scraper and then a floor scraper. After that I used a steel brush. After that a poly brush. After that vacuumed everything. The pics are deceiving. A lot of what appears to be caked creosote is actually mortar. That said, there is most definitely a thin glaze of shiny creosote on almost everything. Any advice?

How hot will my insulated liner get?

I would clean it with a rotary cleaner with chains on it to chip the glaze away. If that didnt work then it needs chemicals.

An insulated liner can get hot enough in a chimney fire to ignite that creosote. That is the reason you are required to remove any creosote.

 

[darktower007]

Save the cut out piece, maybe put it under the insert or at the back of the fireplace so that a future owner has the option of welding it back in if they so choose.

Great idea.. thanks!


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[darktower007]

I would clean it with a rotary cleaner with chains on it to chip the glaze away. If that didnt work then it needs chemicals.

An insulated liner can get hot enough in a chimney fire to ignite that creosote. That is the reason you are required to remove any creosote.

Anything special to tell the sweep company? Mine looks similar.. just tell them to clean it good for the insert?


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[bholler]

Anything special to tell the sweep company? Mine looks similar.. just tell them to clean it good for the insert?


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Just tell them you need it cleaned in preparation for an insert install. A good sweep should know what to do.

 

[jjmac1235]

I know this is a negative attitude. I also don't want to offend anyone in the trade, But I have the worst house in one of the nicest neighborhoods around. Handy. Do all my own work. Carpenter by trade. Almost anytime a tradesman hears what town I am in, they immediately up charge everything.

I have a feeling the sweeper is going to come in and document that I need chemicals to remove the creosote film in the smoke box. He will most likely want an additional charge to "follow up" and clean it again. Then he will document the chimney as unsafe to burn creating a paper trail that is going to cause me all sorts of problems. Basically forcing me to pay for the additional work. Just to get the OK to put in a new insert.

But then again, he may come in and give it a good sweep and say I am good to go. But I doubt it....

I understand that if it is unsafe than it is unsafe. I get it. And I don't want to take that risk. But I also want to be reasonable. I spent almost 3 hrs with my head up the chimney scraping the smoke box, cleaned out the smoke chamber and scraped cleaned and vacumned everything as best as I could. Furthermore, I am going to be stuffing the smoke box and chamber with Roxul, installing a block plate, and am getting an insulated liner. 13" flue. 6" SS liner pre insulated with 1/2" insulation and then another layer of aluminum liner on the outside.

The sweep wants $230 to come and sweep and inspect. While I am willing to pay that for a piece of mind, I am nervous that this will turn into a $500-600 of additional charges.

How clean does this smoke box need to be??

 

[bholler]

I know this is a negative attitude. I also don't want to offend anyone in the trade, But I have the worst house in one of the nicest neighborhoods around. Handy. Do all my own work. Carpenter by trade. Almost anytime a tradesman hears what town I am in, they immediately up charge everything.

I have a feeling the sweeper is going to come in and document that I need chemicals to remove the creosote film in the smoke box. He will most likely want an additional charge to "follow up" and clean it again. Then he will document the chimney as unsafe to burn creating a paper trail that is going to cause me all sorts of problems. Basically forcing me to pay for the additional work. Just to get the OK to put in a new insert.

But then again, he may come in and give it a good sweep and say I am good to go. But I doubt it....

I understand that if it is unsafe than it is unsafe. I get it. And I don't want to take that risk. But I also want to be reasonable. I spent almost 3 hrs with my head up the chimney scraping the smoke box, cleaned out the smoke chamber and scraped cleaned and vacumned everything as best as I could. Furthermore, I am going to be stuffing the smoke box and chamber with Roxul, installing a block plate, and am getting an insulated liner. 13" flue. 6" SS liner pre insulated with 1/2" insulation and then another layer of aluminum liner on the outside.

The sweep wants $230 to come and sweep and inspect. While I am willing to pay that for a piece of mind, I am nervous that this will turn into a $500-600 of additional charges.

How clean does this smoke box need to be??

No offence taken there are sweeps who do take advantage. But you concerns about a paper trail are unfounded. Yes they will document things but that paperwork is not submitted to anyone. It is for your information and to protect them from liability.

The smoke chamber in my opinion is not clean enough. But it will probably be ok especially if you are stuffing with roxul. But from what I can see the flue will probably need cleaned with chains.

 

[jjmac1235]

No offence taken there are sweeps who do take advantage. But you concerns about a paper trail are unfounded. Yes they will document things but that paperwork is not submitted to anyone. It is for your information and to protect them from liability.

The smoke chamber in my opinion is not clean enough. But it will probably be ok especially if you are stuffing with roxul. But from what I can see the flue will probably need cleaned with chains.

Perfect. Thank you.

 

[jjmac1235]

Bought the soot eater and gave the chimney another clean. Probably took another gallon of creosote and crap from the chimney.

Spent the last 2 days cutting dead standing trees (cause I have no wood for this season). Brought some of it inside to get the snow melted off it.



Surprisingly I am getting a 17-20% moisture reading on most of the split wood. Stoked about that. Some are at or around 25%.

Chimney cap came in:



Liner and other tidbits arrive tomorrow. Insert should be here in time for a weekend install!

 

[zrock]

My way of thinking 500-600 is cheep insurance to make sure your house and family are safe... it costs what it costs... if something goes wrong that little expense would have seemed foolish not to do. Especially if it costed a life..

But that's just me

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[Woody Stover]

Spent the last 2 days cutting dead standing trees (cause I have no wood for this season).

Any dead standing you can find with the bark fallen off and under 8" is going to be pretty dry.

 

[jjmac1235]

Picked up the insert today. Jerry rigged a rope and used the tractor to get it out of truck. Knocked off the wood from the pallet and threw down a heavy blanket and jimmy'ed it thought the garage door into the house. Dragged it over to the living room.



Waiting on liner. Delayed a few days. Aiming to have a fire this weekend!

 

[Woody Stover]

Waiting on liner.

Great, you've got time to grab more wood!

 

[jjmac1235]

Liner arrived. Went with the bottom up install.:



Kind of a pain in the butt. But got it done fairly easily. I did buy the pull cone. Not sure how I would have got it done otherwise.


Liner Installed with block plate:



I would reccomend you cut the hole for the block plate 2 inches or more larger than your liner. The was probably the second biggest pain in the butt. Not really sure its needed. I stuffed the crap out of the smoke box with Roxul. More work than reward I think on these block plates…

Chimney Shot:



Unit installed:



Now this was the biggest pain in the ass. It was just me and my wife and while not that bad at first, I was having a hell of a time getting this thing in place. After struggling for 30 minutes I realized that the back of the unit was hitting the clean out tray in the fireplace! I felt like a moron. Easy sailing there on out.

Side panel in:


Done!



Chimney Cap:

 

[Hogwildz]

Block off plate stops air flow, roxul does not.
Is there a top plate on there to close off the top? Or is the liner just resting there?
Nice insert. Enjoy

If you don't want that floor in front to get burnt by popping embers, you may want to get a hearth rug or extend the hearth.

 

[jjmac1235]

Fire!

 

[darktower007]

Fire!

View attachment 235924

Nice job and thanks for posting all the pictures! My stove is sitting in my garage.
I’ll have to wait till after Christmas to to install it. (Wife doesn’t want the mess before) lol


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[jjmac1235]

First impression is not very good. The insert is barely heating a 30x20 room.

Wood I am using is standing dead hardwood. Under 20% moisture. All of it.

Insert temp via ir gun at glass is 780 degrees. Top by air vent is roughly 550 degrees.

Burning through wood at a fast pace as well. Starting fire with damper open and slowly shutting it down. Maybe a 3 hr burn time.


Most definitely not going to be able to heat the whole house. No way. I may be lucky to get this room to 73 degrees...

Fan must be on high in order to get any heat from this thing. If fan is on low I can’t get over 64 degrees.

Even went out and bought a ceiling fan to push hot air down.

So far not so good...

 

[bholler]

First impression is not very good. The insert is barely heating a 30x20 room.

Wood I am using is standing dead hardwood. Under 20% moisture. All of it.

Insert temp via ir gun at glass is 780 degrees. Top by air vent is roughly 550 degrees.

Burning through wood at a fast pace as well. Starting fire with damper open and slowly shutting it down. Maybe a 3 hr burn time.


Most definitely not going to be able to heat the whole house. No way. I may be lucky to get this room to 73 degrees...

Fan must be on high in order to get any heat from this thing. Of fan is on low I can’t get over 64 degrees.

Even went out and bought a ceiling fan to push hot air down.

So far not so good...

How far are you shutting it back? How much wood are you loading?

 

[moresnow]

Waiting on liner. Delayed a few days. Aiming to have a fire this weekend!

This makes for a tough couple days