changing fire All manner of questions and solutions to problems and issues surrounding the subject of brickwork, blockwork and stonework

[clm86home]

Dear all,

I currently have a fuel burning fire and surround yet is very dated and wish to remove.
I wish to replace it with an electirc fire stove that I want to stand in the ressess which is currently the fireplace.

Could anyone advise me what steps to take in closing up/blocking the chimney which i have as it will not be required, yet i still want the ressess and do not want to brick over the hole.

Any help appreciated, thanks.

[Perry525]

At the moment, when the fire is out, you have a situation where hot air from the room rises up the chimney and cold comes down.
The first thing is to cap the chimney to stop the rain and cold air dropping down inside it.
The next is to seal the chimney at the bottom to stop your very expensive hot air from the electric fire disappearing.
Now we need to know, is the chimney in the middle of the house or on an outside wall?
If the chimney is on an outside wall, then it will be very cold inside and a convection current will start up inside the chimney moving the heat from the room to the outside. (Not good!)
In this case the chimney needs to be covered with polystyrene to stop the humidity in the room soaking into the chimney breast and creating a major heat loss, before it moves across the chimney space and condenses on the outside chimney wall.

[TheDoctor5]

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