Masonry Fireplace Conversion to Standing Wood Stove....

[Shmudda]

I presently have a POS masonry fireplace that really serves me no purpose. All it does is suck heat and wood up the chimney.

In the next year or so I'm planning on removing the hearth and brick face, and would like to put a 6" nipple in the wall for a flue opening. Has anyone done this work before? Also, what did you use in place of the brick face? I'm not opposed to brick again, but just need to support it better as the face was pulling off and away from the main fireplace structure creating gaps between the masonry.

Thanks,

Craig

 

[fossil]

How about a nice wood burning insert with a chimney liner? No tearing out bricks or any other radical mods required. Will heat very effectively. Rick

 

[Shmudda]

I want to get the heat more into the room and not in the fireplace and chimney structure. I have thought about that, but structurally I want to change things around a little.

Craig

 

[Jerry_NJ]

I "hear ya" but regarding Rick's suggestion I have an insert in one of my masonry fireplaces with a 6" stainless Steel flue running up the inside of my chimney. The insert, a Quadrafire, has a forced air heat exchanger and it puts out a lot of heat. It is safe to operate without the blower, such as during a power failure, but on the power failures we have I have used a deep cycle battery and inverter to run the fan. With no furnace I nee all the BTUs I can get out of the insert. I also have a small gas generator to keep the deep cycle battery charged - we lost power to 10 days in October 2012, that's the only time I have been totally depended on the exchanger to heating my home.

Good luck on whatever you decide, you are "right on" on your statement about the open fireplace not being a way to gain heat for the house. .

 

[begreen]

An insert that projects into the room will convect reasonably well in an outage. There are several models available depending on what will fit.

 

[Grisu]

I want to get the heat more into the room and not in the fireplace and chimney structure.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. My insert warms up nicely the masonry around it which will project the heat for hours after the stove has essentially gone cold. Granted, it is an interior fireplace/chimney and may not work as well with an exterior one. Nevertheless, there is a reason people pay extra for the thermal mass a soapstone stove provides. In addition, if you will ever think about selling the house a nice looking fireplace will look better to most buyers than just a woodstove (although I know most people here would disagree ).

 

[Oregon aloha]

I removed the damper and set a free standing stove in the old fireplace with a chimney liner and a OAK. Heats way to well with no fan. The thermal mass stays warm and heats even when the fire has gone. Move even longer lasting heat like a soapstone stove.

 

[Nick Mystic]

It sounds like you just have a thin layer of fake brick as a facade on the front of the fireplace from your description of it pulling away from the main structure, as you put it. A photo or two will help us get a better idea of what you are facing so we can offer our ideas. As to your question on what else you could use as a facade I suppose the most common facing on fireplaces beside brick would be some sort of stone.

 

[bsruther]

I am in the process of converting my fireplace. There was 1-1/2 tons of brick facade that I removed that covered most of the fireplace wall. Removing the brick exposed the block wall around the fireplace opening.I completely removed the smoke shelf and all fire brick. I widened my opening to 38 inches and raised it to 41 inches. I attached backer board to the block and will set stone veneer on that. Just picked up my stone last Saturday. The holiday will keep me from getting much accomplished for the rest of the week, but hopefully, I can mount the angled steel for the blockoff plate to be attached to before next week and start setting stone sometime next week.

So far, this has been a fun, but very dirty job. even though I have a plastic curtain isolating my work area, we still get a fine layer of dust in the next room.

I don't know how tall your chimney is, but mine is only 13 ft. I can't afford to have bends and want as much draft as I can get. Leaving the old firebox in place would've forced me to have bends in my vent pipe.

Before the rebuild, my options were very limited as to which stoves would work. Now, I can't find a stove that won't fit.

You may not be able to know what your options are until you start tearing it apart. Got any pics?

 

[vwmike]

I want to do the same thing as my current fireplace is small and will only accept the little inserts like the vista. Not to mention its on an outside wall and sucks up a lot of heat.

 

[Shmudda]

It sounds like you just have a thin layer of fake brick as a facade on the front of the fireplace from your description of it pulling away from the main structure, as you put it. A photo or two will help us get a better idea of what you are facing so we can offer our ideas. As to your question on what else you could use as a facade I suppose the most common facing on fireplaces beside brick would be some sort of stone.

Nick,

You hit the nail on the head here. I have a complete brick face and a hearth sitting on my floor, so when the floor flexes its not good for the brick face. I will post some pics.

Craig