my home has a fake fireplace with 1950′s electric logs. can i make this into a real wood burning fireplace?
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at
6:57 pm
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Do you have an existing flue/chimney………..if so yes it can be done. It will not be cheap but possibly worth the cost. You should contact a local contractor, and get some estimates, you may have to do quite a bit of work but it would be an improvement, and could increase the value of your home. Check to see if you have fire brick already there etc.
Best of luck!
Since creating a wood-burning fireplace might be extremely expensive, maybe you are open to the gas-logs idea. They require only an exhaust pipe (can be flexible metal) and not a fixed tile flue. Thickness of fire brick should be less too.
Not unless you want to burn the house down?
If it,s on an outside wall you would need a fire box and a chimney.
P/S a lot of money..
No, not easily. The key to a safe fireplace is the delivery of all combustion gases to outside in a manner that keeps your room air unpolluted and doesn’t risk starting a structure fire. It sounds like you need a chimney built, that has a flue cross-sectional area of at least 1/10 the area of your fireplace opening. In order to have a chimney built of MASONRY, you will need to first build a foundation for all that weight which will make it stand straight, tie in correctly to the existing frame of your house, and not shift over time or with storms, frost heaves, etc. A competent professional should do the design. It is (for most) a very expensive proposition. A building permit will probably be needed, and 10′s of thousands of $ investment in the construction, for most homes. An less expensive alternative to masonry is a "class A" metal chimney. They are round in cross-section, come in four-foot sections, are double-insulated, and relatively light in weight but are not cheap. For a fireplace flue, the diameter requirement is much higher than for a wood-burning stove. Wood stoves, I have seen use as little as a 5" diameter pipe (this is D=5" INNER, not outer) and most larger fireplaces need about 9" or more. 3.14 X [(D/2) squared] gives you cross sectional area in sq in., this X 10 is the max fireplace opening size you can safely use (try to get away with less, and it’ll probably smoke up your house and may give you CO poisoning). For example, even a small 35" X 31" FP opening is 1,116 sq in, so you need a min. 112 sq in flue area, which means a 6" diameter round inner flue as an absolute minimum.
Your local CHIMNEY SWEEP can usually install these, but cannot design the foundation for masonry where a foundation doesn’t exist for it. I saw a masonry chimney once, in a house in Lancaster, PA that was supported by a bookcase, but I don’t recommend it. "DIY" people do all kinds of crazy things when they fix their homes. You probably want to get a FIREPLACE INSERT that is designed for low "clearance to combustibles." Get that plus the "class A" chimney (you cut a hole in roof and/or wall, and install a boot to seal the hole) It will have some features designed into it such as glass front, air chambers, baffles, etc. that make it cost more than a cheap fireplace insert, but it is less likely to burn your house down. Get N.F.P.A. Publication # 211; your public library MIGHT have it, or your bookstore might be able to get it on special order for about $ 35.00. National Fire Protection Association, North Quincy, Massachusetts. Also Chimney Safety Institute of America, Plainfield, Indiana. A leading chimney supply company: Copperfield, in Iowa, which owns the Homesaver brand.
Get a licensed masonry contractor to look at it. If you can get a visit be an inspector that won’t hurt either. Frankly I think you are looking at a project far beyond anything you might have considered so far. If you consider the best case it will take weeks of work and thousands and thousands of dollars. Not to mention a mess that would make ground zero at the twin towers seem tame.
You might consider upgrading the electric logs to something that looks more natural and giving the box a face lift.
Any way you go, I wish you the best of luck.
Last thought: WOW, what a project.
I would think there probably is a way to do it, but you will probably have to consult with a professional. Since the fireplace is electric, it will not be vented properly or at all. Check with a local fireplace/wood stove business on this one.
The difference between a real and a decorative is vast, you must realize that they are constructed by two different materials, a fake is not able to withstand the heat for one.
You will have to get an expert in there to replace the existing one and put one in that is for the purpose of use rather then decoration. Good Luck..