Opening of Smoke shelf too narrow

[gatineau_Jo]

Hey their Heart community,

I'm a fairly experiences DIYer, but I'm a pretty new to all the fireplace/chimney stuff.

We have a late 70's house with a brick fireplace we want to bring in the 21st century with a wood burning insert with a 6" liner in the chimney.

The problem I have is regarding the width of the opening next to the smoke shelf, it is about 3" wide and is too narrow to insert the liner, even ovalized, the store where we bought the insert could not do the installation since they do not do any masonry work.

Did anybody else chipped a few inches off their smoke shelf to allow the chimney insert to fit ? Is this common practice ?

I'm sorry if my explanation is unclear, English is my second language, I have attached a diagram to my post.

Thanks !

 

[EbS-P]

When I had mine professionally installed the installer took out the entire damper and frame assembly and knocked loose the top row of firebricks and reset more vertical and further back to To get an extra 1” or 2. So it has been done. If I had done it myself I doubt I would have even reset them.

 

[bholler]

Hey their Heart community,

I'm a fairly experiences DIYer, but I'm a pretty new to all the fireplace/chimney stuff.

We have a late 70's house with a brick fireplace we want to bring in the 21st century with a wood burning insert with a 6" liner in the chimney.

The problem I have is regarding the width of the opening next to the smoke shelf, it is about 3" wide and is too narrow to insert the liner, even ovalized, the store where we bought the insert could not do the installation since they do not do any masonry work.

Did anybody else chipped a few inches off their smoke shelf to allow the chimney insert to fit ? Is this common practice ?

I'm sorry if my explanation is unclear, English is my second language, I have attached a diagram to my post.

Thanks !

Yes it is pretty common to do it. I don't reset them either. If they come out whole I set them and the damper parts up on the smoke shelf so they can be put back if anyone ever wants to go back to a fireplace