Sunday, August 15, 2004

Fireplace back in position

Foyer insert in placeFireplace is almost finished. Caroline has done all the pointing and this morning I installed the wood burning insert, refitting all the bits back together and connecting up the flue and hot air feed. The silver pipe to the left with the kink is a hot air feed from the fireplace right up to the top floor of the house. Above the 'fire box' there is a separate heating box which generates huge volumes of hot air out of two vents on top of the fire. One is capped off but the other is ducted up through the house to pipe hot air round the house. There is a fan to blow extra hot air, but we have never used it and often have to close the vent upstairs because it can get too hot. The fire is rated at 11 KW, and there is another identical unit the other end of the house that feeds hot air to the second floor. Thats all the heating we have for the whole house, and only when it gets very cold for prolonged periods do we keep both fires running 24 hours a day.

The last bit of work is to clean up the stonework to the left (so it's the same as the right hand side) and build a simple sheet metal shroud (hood?) to cover the outside of the fire and the pipework. Normally these fires are encased in a brick clad 'fake' fireplace but hopefully it should look a bit better with a black tall housing. A slightly simpler version than this.

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