Please Help Me Solve A Fireplace Mystery.

[Patrick E.]

I need help from people who know their way around fireplaces. I am fairly uninitiated myself, but I can usually pick things up pretty quickly. I recently began visiting with my parents at their house, on a weekly basis. We all live in the rural mountains of Western North Carolina; elevation 2,200 feet. My Mom is 88 and my Dad is 90. They are still very active, but there are a lot of things they just aren't able to do any more; things like cleaning out the gutters and blowing the leaves off the roof. Another of those tasks, is cutting and splitting wood for their fireplace. They have a very large steel insert unit this is original to the house, which was uilt in 2004. (It's 43" wide, 33" high, and 19?" deep.) It has a large stone hearth, but it is not a masonary-constructed fireplace. The chimney goes straight up to the roof (not on an outside wall). There is a wood planked box around the chimney on the slanted metal roof. The fireplace has folding glass doors, but they aren't designed to be air tight. There is no mechanism for adjusting the airflow going into the fire. There is also no blower. And, there in no adjustable damper, or I SHOULD say, there IS no damper. As a practical matter, as I have been building fires for them this winter, I have noticed that the wood doesn't seem like it wants to burn. The kindling burns fine, and the wood initially seems to flame up, but it eventually dies out. And this is very dry three-year old oak and poplar.

My parent told me many years ago how the damper came to be removed. They said a chimney sweep was doing the annual cleaning when his brush got caught in the damper (door?). This person said he damaged the damper significantly, and it was not repairable. But, he said he would add something to the firebox to make up for the fact that there was no longer a functioning damper. According to my Mom, he didn't offer to pay for the damage he had done. Neither of them remember exactly what he told them about the "fix" he apparently implimented. I have thoroughly inspected the fireplace, and I, being a nubie, can't tell what kind of damper it originally had, or where it was attached to anything.

I HAVE found something I don't understand. There is a large sheet of stainless steel, "portably" installed at the back of the firebox. It looks like a shield of some sort for the back wall. It has two metal "feet" that hold it upright; they slide onto the bottom of the sheet --- they are NOT permanently attached. It is slightly curved, and it covers all of the back wall and extends a little further out to the left and right. Given the four legs of the grate and the two feet of whatever this thing is, it's a pain in the butt when it comes time to shovel out the ashes.

If my parents were ever told what his addition to the fireplace was supposed to do, they have long since forgotten it. And, they never saw this chimney sweep again. He was never again reachable at the phone number they had for him.
So finally, here are my questions for you --- the experts. Do you have any idea what that questionable chimney sweep was trying to do with the large piece of stainless steel he fabricated? If it supposed to be a shield, what is it protecting? And how does "it" relate to the missing damper? And if he did destroy the original damper, could he not just install a new or different one? And now, the obvious follow-up question, given its present state, what can/should I do to correct or repair this fireplace, so it functions properly?
I've attached four photos. I thought I had a photo of the steel "shield" sitting in the firebox behind the cast iron grate, but I don't. However, the way those two items are situated together on the yellow table cloth is exactly how they sit inside the firebox. Note the crack on the back wall, it has a red loop around it.
Thank you for your help in solving this mystery.

 

[Eman85]

Looks like you have a pre-made zero clearance fireplace, not much of a heat source just a wood eater. The sheet metal on the log holder looks like a home made reflector, an attempt to get more heat into the room and possibly to protect the cracked back wall. Usually there is a linkage handle on the face of the unit for the damper and from the pics of the pipe there doesn't appear to be a damper. Any chance you can find a tag or label for the brand of the unit? As for the wood not burning you either have wet wood or a blocked flue, has the chimney been cleaned? I'd ask local stove shops for a qualified chimney sweep that could inspect and identify the unit.

 

[Nordicbynature]

Is there or was there a baffle plate?