so, would you demo this useless pile of rocks, or put a woodstove thimble into the chimney above, put the stove in front of the pile of rocks & pretend it's not in the way?
@redenigma I would keep the rocks! Isn't there a stove in there already? 🧐
@b4cks4w no (there's a cheesy electric fake stove in there because nowhere else to put it). and it's built really badly with a right angle connection that catches fire often if you use the fireplace.
@redenigma Yikes!
Talking about that pipe and angles and draw - how far to the roof? If it's me, I'm piping all the way up so I don't need to think about chinking. Downside is the whole thing doesn't initially breathe as well as a fireplace so starting a fire needs some pre-warming of that cold air stack. I prefer that to chimney fires.
@b4cks4w @redenigma
I'e been using one of these successfully for 20 yrs now. Has a stovepipe up the chimney. You can clean or paint or tile over the rocks?
@damselfly59 @b4cks4w IF the chimney went straight up, i would have done that 22 years ago. if you look at the fireplace, you see that it just... ends
@damselfly59 @b4cks4w the rocks stick out into the room over 3 feet already
@redenigma @damselfly59
Ahhh I see now.
Yeah.
Hmmm.
Would keep it if I thought the masonry was special. Having to build a chimney after the fact... hassle. And an exposed (triple wall, $$$) pipe will look a bit goofy.
@b4cks4w i asked kiddo if he could take it apart, & he's sending me hammer drill suggestions...
@redenigma
Have a Milwaukee hammer drill (almost) old as that house -- can't be stopped. Good way to go about it; swiss cheese the mortar a bit. Goes without saying don't breathe whatever that stuff is.
@b4cks4w the other two relatively functional fireplaces have 2'x3' flues. they were built to have both up & downstairs fireplaces on each chimney, but the upstairs ones were closed off decades ago. i don't know if they even have dampers or anything. they do have nice mantels...
one fireplace downstairs was rebuilt in the 40s or 50s. i strongly suspect that side of the house had some kind of fire damage at some point. the other is a Rumford & still has a crane
@redenigma Older house eh? That's a lot of fireplaces!
@b4cks4w the height to the ell roof is about 8' lower than to the roof of the main house where the chimney actually is, & the chimney is about 3.5-4' higher than the roof
why the idiots didn't just build a chimney while they were building the fireplace is just one of those things i don't understand about the previous owners (you should see what passes for heating "ductwork")