Replacing Pre-Fab Fireplace with Wood Burner

[jma24]

Hi,

First time posting. It always amazes me how when you want to learn about a topic, there is always a bunch of likeminded, super smart individuals who hang out on a forum somewhere.

I moved into this house nearly 2 years ago. We have two good original masonry fire places from 1957, that we use to mostly aesthetic effect. There is a third chimney in the kitchen, which is furthest away from the furnace. We have a ton of firewood, I have 10+ cords seasoning, including 2 cords of semi-covered near the house.

From what I learned, it is a prefab 30” fireplace, I’m told made by National and installed around 50 years ago. It does not draught well and fills the room with smoke. In addition, the kitchen end of the house is cold in winter, and what should be a nice cosy room where we sit around the table and chat, turns into a room we barely use a few months out of the year.

I was thinking to add a wood stove, but we don’t have space in the room for a free standing stove. I was hoping maybe someone could comment on a few things?

1) It looks like because of my small prefab fireplace, an easy solution: the wood burning insert is out of the question? If so, it looks like ripping out the existing fireplace and installing an EPA-certified wood burning fireplace is the logical option? As I said, there isn’t the floor space for a free standing stove.

2) The room is quite small, approx. 20’x20’ with a cut out, so 350sqft. I’m thinking something like the RSF Pearl, 2.1cuft, 50,000btu seems like the right sort of size? Presumably a larger fireplace will dwarf the room. The base of the chimney seems to be 50” wide and 44” deep on the outside. Difficult to know how big it is on the inside, it appears to be a wood frame with stucco.

3) Presumably when running at full power, this will still generate way too much heat for one room, and I will want to vent. It looks like it’s possible to gravity vent to the basement, or to an upper room with a blower. Given I want to retrofit this with minimum work, and the basement is below, I guess this is the easiest option? The rooms above the kitchen are also cold, is it a big job to fit ducting?

4) The existing fireplace has a nice hearth with an arch. Am I right in thinking I can leave the hearth, but will need to rip the arch out and reframe the new fireplace with 2x4? I’m wondering how big a job it will turn into…

Thanks!

John

 

[webby3650]

Do you have a picture of the fireplace? Given the age, I’d assume it’s a heatform firebox rather than a prefab fireplace system. Does it have a masonry flue or a metal pipe coming out of the roof?

 

[jma24]

Do you have a picture of the fireplace? Given the age, I’d assume it’s a heatform firebox rather than a prefab fireplace system. Does it have a masonry flue or a metal pipe coming out of the roof?

Thank you for the reply. Yes sorry I forgot to attach it. I can get a clearer picture in the day if it’s not good enough.

I wouldn’t know the difference between a heatform firebox and a prefab Does it make a difference?

There is a 8” diameter metal pipe coming out the top of the fireplace. I believe it is metal on the roof but it has lost its cap so I’d need to get up a ladder to check. If it helps, the chimney is hollow when you tap on it.

 

[kennyp2339]

Just as much as its important to establish the type of fireplace you have, its also important to establish the type of chimney, an air cooled chimney will not be acceptable for a woodstove, and you need to make sure if ordering an epa fireplace that an existing air cooled chimney will work with the unit.

 

[webby3650]

Thank you for the reply. Yes sorry I forgot to attach it. I can get a clearer picture in the day if it’s not good enough.

I wouldn’t know the difference between a heatform firebox and a prefab Does it make a difference?

There is a 8” diameter metal pipe coming out the top of the fireplace. I believe it is metal on the roof but it has lost its cap so I’d need to get up a ladder to check. If it helps, the chimney is hollow when you tap on it.

View attachment 230182

The difference is with what you have you will be removing wood framing and metal pipe. The heatform I mentioned, would be solid masonry all the way up, not an easy job to remove.
You certainly have a pre fab system, should come out pretty easily. You will need to replace the chimney also.

 

[jma24]

The difference is with what you have you will be removing wood framing and metal pipe. The heatform I mentioned, would be solid masonry all the way up, not an easy job to remove.
You certainly have a pre fab system, should come out pretty easily. You will need to replace the chimney also.

Thanks, got it. I looked into those last night and they seem to be an expletive-filled project to remove.

It looks fairly easy to remove, the bricks will probably have to come out but since there’s no wood burner I found which will fit in a 30” wide opening, that seems a given. Probably the biggest job will be decorating around the fireplace after the installation.

When you say chimney, this is the steel chimney, right? I should be able to leave the stucco intact and just replace the flue? I may have a height issue, since the existing chimney doesn’t seem either long enough to meet the specs of the stove, or high enough above the roof line to meet code requirements, but that should be solvable with a 3’ extension.


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[jma24]

Just as much as its important to establish the type of fireplace you have, its also important to establish the type of chimney, an air cooled chimney will not be acceptable for a woodstove, and you need to make sure if ordering an epa fireplace that an existing air cooled chimney will work with the unit.

Yes sorry I didn’t mention this, I had already assumed the old steel chimney is toast. To start with, it doesn’t draft correctly, so I’m going to want to extend it a little to be sure.

For instance the RSF Pearl is only certified with the 7” ICC Excel chimney. I’m guessing leaving the old one in is a good way to burn your house down...

If I understand correctly though, this is a (fairly) straightforward rip and replace? Looks like approx $1000 of materials.


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[webby3650]

I don’t know if I’d call it straight forward.. it’s usually doable though.
Do you have access to the back side of the chase? We have left the fireplace face intact and replaced whole units from the back side on several occasions. The Kozy Z-42 seems to be a good fit a lot of the time.

 

[jma24]

I do, although it is outside. I’d like to avoid ripping out the outside of the chase if possible, it would probably be tough to match the stucco and be a big outside repaint job.

Here’s a couple more photos to show context.

 

[webby3650]

Well, all the brick needs to come down unfortunately.

 

[jma24]

Well, all the brick needs to come down unfortunately.

That’s ok. The hearth can stay though, right?


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[webby3650]

That’s ok. The hearth can stay though, right?


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Should be able to

 

[jma24]

So the boss much prefers the Opel 3C visuals, and the ability to have the clean face kit and reinstall a brick surround.

It should then be possible to use the gravity kits to install vents in the rooms above the fireplace. It also appears to be possible to connect directly into the HVAC ducting.

Is there a risk with the Opel 3C that the kitchen is wayyy too hot, or will the clean face and gravity vents ensure the heat goes elsewhere?

It’s now 45 degrees outside at night and already I’m having troubles keeping the end bedrooms in the 60s.


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[begreen]

The Opel is a big fireplace. I think your initial thoughts for the small room were correct in looking at the Pearl.

How were you thinking of gravity venting? Into the kitchen or to an area above the kitchen? Can you post a simple sketch of the floorplan?

 

[jma24]

The Opel is a big fireplace. I think your initial thoughts for the small room were correct in looking at the Pearl.

How were you thinking of gravity venting? Into the kitchen or to an area above the kitchen? Can you post a simple sketch of the floorplan?

I’ll draw up a plan later - need to do this in any case!

I was thinking to run the gravity vents up the wall into the rooms above. Those are the coldest rooms in the house.

We visited a Quadrafire dealer yesterday and looked at the 7100. It is a similar size to the Opal and looks much too big.

The RSF dealer had the Focus 320 and that looked like a nice size, but stylistically wrong for our traditional kitchen.


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[jma24]

Here’s a floor plan of the kitchen. HVAC ducting is to the left and right of the fireplace in the walls.




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[begreen]

Yes, it looks like heat will pretty much stay in that area. This could be mitigated somewhat by the gravity vents and also by pulling cooler air from outside the kitchen into that space.

The Astria Montecito is another traditional look 2 cu ft fireplace.

 

[jma24]

Yes, it looks like heat will pretty much stay in that area. This could be mitigated somewhat by the gravity vents and also by pulling cooler air from outside the kitchen into that space.

The Astria Montecito is another traditional look 2 cu ft fireplace.

Thanks. I thought though that if you have the gravity vents in other rooms, the amount of heating in the kitchen itself should be quite minimal? Or do I misunderstand how this all works?

Astria Montecito looks nice. Will see what wife thinks when she wakes from her nap...

Again though if I understand correctly, surely the Astria with its built-in louvres, would vent more hot air into the kitchen. With the Opal you can block the louvres and control where the air is discharged?


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[begreen]

You may be right. I haven't seen the Opel3 in action, just the Opel2 and that was room vented. It's a serious heater. There will still be some strong radiant heat from the fireplace door, but that may be acceptably comfortable in the winter.

 

[jma24]

You may be right. I haven't seen the Opel3 in action, just the Opel2 and that was room vented. It's a serious heater. There will still be some strong radiant heat from the fireplace door, but that may be acceptably comfortable in the winter.

I got Redneck Photoshop out tonight and made a to-scale drawing of the Opel 3C. To my eye it does not overpower the room. The top louvre is there for scale, we don’t plan to have it.

As I understand it, the Opel 2C and 3C only differ in face style. They share an owners manual.

Sounds like it’s time to put another call into the lovely French Canadian lady at RSF and see what they think the heat distribution is radiant vs vented.

 

[jma24]

Here’s what it looks like with my (poor) Photoshop skills, before and after. Looks good, I think. The mantle & TV will need to be raised 2”.

 

[jma24]

Thanks to the very helpful customer support people at RSF, I have a solution I'm working through...

- Use the central heat option to attach to the HVAC trunk to the cold area of the house. Crucially, it's possible to rectangular ducting to the RSF central heat blower, which we need because there isn't enough space next to the stove. The blower will be in the basement where we won't be able to hear it.
- We can't make use of the gravity vents, there just isn't space in our installation. They would have to fit in the kitchen and then we'd have to lose the TV.
- We will use the rock retainer kit to face it with 5/8" thick brick.

Right now this project is looking possible!

 

[jma24]

First quote arrived, it was into 5 figures, including installation. Every indication I had was that we were looking at $5-8k, so this caught me off guard.

Probably we can save $1k a year on oil, so the return is 1 year for every $1000 we spend.

Have I totally misunderstood all of this, or am I being ripped off?