Spec Sheet
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
I
FIG. 1
1
3
2
6
4
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.