I am looking for some advice on how to handle a situation which has arisen over the last few years regarding a 33 year old fireplace in a 110 year old house.
The fireplace is an integral part of our home installed when my parents purchased the home in the late 70's. It was a "Majestic" brand steel insert inside of a completely brick and mortar installation. The house is all brick and there is no studding or combustibles that make contact with the fireplace until the chimney passes through the sofit on an outside wall.
About a year ago I bought the house I grew up in from my widowed mother and began to tackle a laundry list of issues across the property. One of which was the fireplace.
About 8 years ago (roughly) my father and I cooked up a steel covering for his dilapidated and rusting liner. We own a steel shop so we were able to design, cut, bend and weld thick steel plates over the existing liner. We also made a new damper. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but our knowledge of fireplaces was extremely little and that has led to some other problems now.
This liner worked by allowing the sides of the fireplace to heat up and dual blowers move air across the liner to warm the room. The fireplace has a smaller front opening and tempered glass doors. I want to retain this heating setup if possible. It is useful for warming the downstairs and for heating in emergencies.
However, after a sweep and inspection last year, it was made clear that the upper liner was shot and started working on a strategy to replace it. The first step I took was to install a Lyemance damper and a chimney cap, something the chimney had never had (thus the rusting out of the liner). This year, I wanted to make a liner extending from the insert we built up to the existing flue tile. However I discovered that the smoke shelf was completely rusted away, and that actually trying to work through the damper hole was not going to happen. I started formulating a new strategy.
My thought was to remove the angled rear of the metal insert and coat the smoke chamber with Chamber Coat 2000 and work my way down to the remaining liner, installing metal as necessary to accomplish this. In the process, essentially removing the smoke shelf and converting the fireplace to a more "Rumford"esque design. I was using these two links as references as to how I would make the rear of the fireplace look:
http://www.woodheat.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=61
http://www.gulland.ca/fhs/openfireplaces.htm
You can see illustrations in both of these pieces that allude to a straight backed fireplace with no smoke shelf. However, when I went to start working I discovered more problems, yet again.
The inside of the masonry "box" that the liner sits in is open at the sides which is where the blower/warming area lies. With the smoke shelf and upper liner gone due to rusting, there is nothing closing the smoke chamber off from the part of the system which is open to the living area.
So now I am faced with a complete tear out of the metal (new and old) and rebuilding of the liner. My thought on this is as follows:
Cut out the entire metal liner.
Line as much of the masonry "box" as possible with foil backed ceramic blanketing.
Replace the metal plates separating the heating chambers from the fireplace.
Rebuild the fireplace using a straight back "Rumford"esque design as described above.
Transition the new metal fireplace liner to the smoke chamber using metal.
Reline the smoke chamber with Chamber Coat 2000 from the top of the metal to the bottom of the flue.
I've read this website for weeks working through some of my ideas and now I wanted to get some feedback from you folks. I want to do this project myself not only because I feel I can, but for financial reasons as well. I want to preserves the fireplace as is from an aesthetic perspective, and I do not want to do an insert. I want to preserve the possibility of using the fireplace for emergency heat as the house is in a rural area and uses all electric heat which can not be run by a generator in a winter power outage. I can power the fireplace blower, however.
I am a decent mason, I have access to metal working tools to cut bend and weld, and I have been doing stupidly large projects my whole life, so I'm not afraid of this thing. I can post pictures later if you tell me what you want to see.
Thanks in advance for your input!
The fireplace is an integral part of our home installed when my parents purchased the home in the late 70's. It was a "Majestic" brand steel insert inside of a completely brick and mortar installation. The house is all brick and there is no studding or combustibles that make contact with the fireplace until the chimney passes through the sofit on an outside wall.
About a year ago I bought the house I grew up in from my widowed mother and began to tackle a laundry list of issues across the property. One of which was the fireplace.
About 8 years ago (roughly) my father and I cooked up a steel covering for his dilapidated and rusting liner. We own a steel shop so we were able to design, cut, bend and weld thick steel plates over the existing liner. We also made a new damper. I'm ashamed to admit it now, but our knowledge of fireplaces was extremely little and that has led to some other problems now.
This liner worked by allowing the sides of the fireplace to heat up and dual blowers move air across the liner to warm the room. The fireplace has a smaller front opening and tempered glass doors. I want to retain this heating setup if possible. It is useful for warming the downstairs and for heating in emergencies.
However, after a sweep and inspection last year, it was made clear that the upper liner was shot and started working on a strategy to replace it. The first step I took was to install a Lyemance damper and a chimney cap, something the chimney had never had (thus the rusting out of the liner). This year, I wanted to make a liner extending from the insert we built up to the existing flue tile. However I discovered that the smoke shelf was completely rusted away, and that actually trying to work through the damper hole was not going to happen. I started formulating a new strategy.
My thought was to remove the angled rear of the metal insert and coat the smoke chamber with Chamber Coat 2000 and work my way down to the remaining liner, installing metal as necessary to accomplish this. In the process, essentially removing the smoke shelf and converting the fireplace to a more "Rumford"esque design. I was using these two links as references as to how I would make the rear of the fireplace look:
http://www.woodheat.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=61
http://www.gulland.ca/fhs/openfireplaces.htm
You can see illustrations in both of these pieces that allude to a straight backed fireplace with no smoke shelf. However, when I went to start working I discovered more problems, yet again.
The inside of the masonry "box" that the liner sits in is open at the sides which is where the blower/warming area lies. With the smoke shelf and upper liner gone due to rusting, there is nothing closing the smoke chamber off from the part of the system which is open to the living area.
So now I am faced with a complete tear out of the metal (new and old) and rebuilding of the liner. My thought on this is as follows:
Cut out the entire metal liner.
Line as much of the masonry "box" as possible with foil backed ceramic blanketing.
Replace the metal plates separating the heating chambers from the fireplace.
Rebuild the fireplace using a straight back "Rumford"esque design as described above.
Transition the new metal fireplace liner to the smoke chamber using metal.
Reline the smoke chamber with Chamber Coat 2000 from the top of the metal to the bottom of the flue.
I've read this website for weeks working through some of my ideas and now I wanted to get some feedback from you folks. I want to do this project myself not only because I feel I can, but for financial reasons as well. I want to preserves the fireplace as is from an aesthetic perspective, and I do not want to do an insert. I want to preserve the possibility of using the fireplace for emergency heat as the house is in a rural area and uses all electric heat which can not be run by a generator in a winter power outage. I can power the fireplace blower, however.
I am a decent mason, I have access to metal working tools to cut bend and weld, and I have been doing stupidly large projects my whole life, so I'm not afraid of this thing. I can post pictures later if you tell me what you want to see.
Thanks in advance for your input!
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)
