Did You Know, Why You Must Limit the Use of Your Fireplace?

Unfortunately, some existing fireplaces do not conform to current building codes.  For this reason, we recommend people use their fireplace for fun only.  Do not try to turn it into a furnace unless you know for certain that it meets the fire and building codes.  The National Bureau of Standards provided some valuable fire safety information in 1980.  They built a masonry fireplace to minimal building code requirements and then conducted heat transfer tests.  They found that if one left the glass doors open and closed the screen, a great amount of room air would enter the fireplace opening and go up through the flue.  This would result in a much lower flue gas temperature and therefore reduce the heat transfer through the chimney walls and to the surrounding combustibles.  They also recommended limiting the length of fire to five hours.

Our CSIA certified technicians can advise you of methods to help avoid heat transfer from your chimney components to the surrounding combustible walls.  For example we can rebuild the back wall of the firebox and add an insulating concrete material called “Thermix.”  The smoke chamber can also be made much safer by applying a 1 ½” thickness of  “Chamber Tech 2000.”