Hello all, I am new to this forum. Here is a little background information about my situation: I bought my home almost a year ago and it is a little over 100 years old. The previous owner had $$$ in his eyes and thought he could flip a foreclosed home. He made out decent but no where near his original asking price. I call him Mr. Patches and the name is self-explanatory. Due to a plumbing issue and no crawl space I've had to dig out from under my home and it is going well; however, while digging under the house, I have found that there is a chimney hidden between the walls of the living room and dining room . After discovering this, I went to the attic and pulled up some of the flooring and found that someone had taken that chimney down but only as far down as the attic flooring. It has two small flues in it and I'm thinking I might just take it completely out. Any suggestions on that would be helpful but that is not my primary question.
My question is about the main Fireplace. I have a double-sided chimney with two fireplaces back to back in separate rooms. I am in the process of installing wood-stove inserts for heat because Mr. Patches threw some old gas logs in them and called it a day. They did okay at warming the room that they were in but they smelled bad and put out tons of soot. The gas furnace is also no help because Mr. Patches installed duct work by dragging it underneath the house on dirt because of the lack of a crawl space and as a result, most of it was torn in half. I also found this out after digging under my house. So I'm in the process of fixing that too. But for now, I'm installing the two fireplace inserts; one is a Buckstove model 50 and the other is a Blackbart II. I have installed a stainless steel flue and found that my stove wouldn't sit back far enough into the box to connect to the flue. My original fireplace was only 28"x28"x17" (at bottom) and 12" (at top). I took out the firebox which gave me up to 37"x28"x21.5" (at bottom) and 17" (at top).
Now to the question(s),
What firebrick should I get and where is the best place to get it?
What mortar is best for my old house?
Are firebricks just as strong as regular bricks because it looks like the brick I removed is a part of a layer that keeps going up into the flue.
Can someone explain the air gap principle to reduce distance from combustibles? (I'm going to have a few inches of free space on each side once complete but my fireplace is only two bricks thick and then I have wood after that)
I think that is all for now.
My question is about the main Fireplace. I have a double-sided chimney with two fireplaces back to back in separate rooms. I am in the process of installing wood-stove inserts for heat because Mr. Patches threw some old gas logs in them and called it a day. They did okay at warming the room that they were in but they smelled bad and put out tons of soot. The gas furnace is also no help because Mr. Patches installed duct work by dragging it underneath the house on dirt because of the lack of a crawl space and as a result, most of it was torn in half. I also found this out after digging under my house. So I'm in the process of fixing that too. But for now, I'm installing the two fireplace inserts; one is a Buckstove model 50 and the other is a Blackbart II. I have installed a stainless steel flue and found that my stove wouldn't sit back far enough into the box to connect to the flue. My original fireplace was only 28"x28"x17" (at bottom) and 12" (at top). I took out the firebox which gave me up to 37"x28"x21.5" (at bottom) and 17" (at top).
Now to the question(s),
What firebrick should I get and where is the best place to get it?
What mortar is best for my old house?
Are firebricks just as strong as regular bricks because it looks like the brick I removed is a part of a layer that keeps going up into the flue.
Can someone explain the air gap principle to reduce distance from combustibles? (I'm going to have a few inches of free space on each side once complete but my fireplace is only two bricks thick and then I have wood after that)
I think that is all for now.
![[Hearth.com] Rebuilding Firebox](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/147/147319-fcac000cadc1e7e97c3095c0f3d5b5e1.jpg?hash=f96qfoia63 "[Hearth.com] Rebuilding Firebox")
