Need to replace 30 year old fireplace

[tugguy]

I have a 30 year old majestic prefab fireplace. I had it inspected recently and the piping in the chimney is bubbled and it failed inspection. Was told rip out and replace with new zero clearance fireplace. I have no idea what that entails. Any info you would like to share would be very helpful. Thank you

 

[begreen]

Replacing an old ZC is a big project. How big depends on the original installation. At a minimum it will require pulling the old fireplace and replacing the chimney. How this will be done will be determined on access. Sometimes this is from the front, and sometimes this is by opening up the rear of the chase.

If you can post some pictures of the current setup we may be able to provide some more guidance.

 

[kennyp2339]

Is the fireplace located within the building envelope or is located on an outside wall or bump out? How tall is the chimney?
The thing about these zero clearance fireplaces is that they are usually installed while the house is being framed, which usually causes issues when its time to scrap them.
The unconventional way (to the average person) to remove them if the fireplace is located along an outside wall is to setup up scaffolding and first remove all the class A chimney, then cut a large enough hole on the outside of the house and literally slide the unit out. This is done to save any hearth work / brick work / finish work on the inside of the house
Are you going to replace the fireplace with a new epa zero clearance unit? or possibly do some renovations and install a woodstove?

 

[ericm979]

We had a crappy old prefab fireplace removed and replaced with a ZC stove. Part of the work was to remove the ugly large fake rock surround that stuck out into the room and make a new tile surround. This entailed demoing part of the closet behind the stove and building a new wall there, and reframing the front wall which was load bearing and got a nice big header. The chase was rebuilt some as well. A new hearth was constructed. The old flue was removed and a new 6" stove flue installed. The house is two story with a steep pitched roof. 36' of expensive modern stove flue was a good part of the cost.

The work was extensive and the project was not cheap. But the stove looks better and actually heats the house. A fire in the prefab made the house colder.

 

[tugguy]

Replacing an old ZC is a big project. How big depends on the original installation. At a minimum it will require pulling the old fireplace and replacing the chimney. How this will be done will be determined on access. Sometimes this is from the front, and sometimes this is by opening up the rear of the chase.

If you can post some pictures of the current setup we may be able to provide some more guidance.

So here is my current setup. I have a guy coming over in a few weeks, to look at my set up and determine what has to be done to get me a fireplace I can use again. As you see it is situated on my rear wall, and the bump out on the deck is where the firebox and flue is located. Its approc 20 feet high. My general questions would be, is a zero clearance fireplace the same as a woodstove? not sure of some of the terminology in use today. Thanks for any imput you may have.

 

[begreen]

ZC fireplaces and wood stoves are quite different, though the difference gets much smaller with some modern EPA fireplaces. Some are actually made by stove makers that have adapted their firebox to a ZC configuration. The Pacific Energy FP30 and Osburn Stratford II are examples of this.

That said, there are ZC fireplaces that are simple fireplaces that produce little heat and suck that out of the room as they are cooling down.