Spec Sheet

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ntroduction

The ideal wood-burning fireplace is

a pleasure to use. It doesn’t smoke

when lit or spill cold air and odors

when not in use; it doesn’t backdraft

when the kitchen fan is on, and it works

well regardless of wind speed or direc-

tion. For obvious reasons, everyone

involved in putting fireplaces into

houses, including manufacturers, archi-

tects, builders and installation contrac-

tors, want every fireplace to give

pleasure and never frustrate the home-

owner. But sometimes fireplaces don’t

work well and the results are costly,

not only in lost time but in the repu-

tation of everyone concerned.

Over the years the fireplace indus-

try has spent a lot of time and money

investigating problems and working to

improve fireplace performance. We now

know how to prevent problems through

effective installation design. This paper

provides a concise overview of the char-

acteristics of good design. But before

getting to the details of best practices

for integrating fireplaces into today’s

houses, there is one essential fact you

need to know:

The most common fireplace prob-

lems are difficult and expensive to cor-

rect after the fireplace is installed, so

the installation design stage is critical

to success.

Although installations that meet all

of these best practices are ideal and are

most likely to give trouble-free perfor-

mance, sometimes house designs or

client objectives make compromises

necessary. Where one aspect of best

Best Practices for

Woodburning Fireplace

Installation

Prevent smoking, drafts and odors

from fireplaces installed in new homes

FIG. 1

Fig. 1 The hearth system illustrated

above would not operate reliably

because it has many of the features that

lead to problems.

See legend next page.

Summary of content (4 pages)

PAGE 1
Best Practices for Woodburning Fireplace Installation Prevent smoking, drafts and odors from fireplaces installed in new homes 2 4 1 6 3 FIG. 1 I ntroduction The ideal wood-burning fireplace is a pleasure to use. It doesn’t smoke when lit or spill cold air and odors when not in use; it doesn’t backdraft when the kitchen fan is on, and it works well regardless of wind speed or direction.
PAGE 2
1 2 4 6 3 FIG. 2 Fig. 2 This system will function reliably because it has the characteristics that promote successful venting. practice cannot be met, fireplace performance might not suffer noticeably. However, installations with several characteristics known to cause problems are much more likely to create user dissatisfaction because of smoking and backdrafting.
PAGE 3
Chimney offsets can be implicated in smoke spillage. 5 outside chase tends to cool gradually to below room temperature, even if the chase is sealed and insulated. As the chimney temperature falls, draft declines along with it. The loss of standby draft is worsened by the fact that negative pressure inside the house can work against upward flow in the chimney. The three most common causes of negative pressure in houses are stack effect, exhaust fan effects and air circulation system imbalances.
PAGE 4
because the result could be venting failure due to adverse winds. Decorative shrouds for chimney tops should never be used unless listed by the fireplace manufacturer. being aware that it is operating. Pressure imbalances in houses can also be created by design problems with forced-air heating and cooling systems. Leaking ducts and air handlers located special attention to the other aspects of system design.