I recently bought a house and have a few questions for the experts here. The house is a 2 bedroom ranch built in 1955, approximately 1100 square foot living area. The fireplace is sealed off and has never been used. I’ll attach a picture of it. I would like to eventually put an insert in it, but with the holidays coming up and new house expenses I don’t know if that’s in the cards right now. At the very least I would like to be able to use the fireplace for ambiance etc if possible. So I suppose my questions are, should I have a chimney sweep come out and unseal the fireplace and give it an inspection? Since it’s sealed up I have no idea if there is a damper in there or not. Is it worth having a damper installed now to be able to use the fireplace for the time being if I plan to install an insert in the future? Any advise is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Doing what we did....we had a local dealer come out and inspect the chimney in july.We purchased our home about 8 months ago n knew we were goin to burn wood. The previous owner had an lp insert in the fireplace. They inspected the chimney with a scope probe and I had to have a liner installed before I could burn wood (we knew we were getting an insert anyhow). They charged 175.00 for the inspection but credited it when we bought our stove.We actually stopped at our dealer n went thru the whole process of picking a stove out that would fit and such before they came to inspect. If you can wait till summer when tbe dealers are slow...you can wheel n deal a lot better.....good luck!
I personally would wait til you have an insert in mind. Get some measurements and start shopping for an insert that you like. No sense in doing the work twice especially if you’re shorten cash due to being temporarily house poor. If you’re looking for “ambiance”, stack a nice cord of wood outside your window to remind yourself that you need to get to work on getting an insert installed!!! If you can simply get measurements and know the dimensions of the inside of your chimney, that would help your dealer out in finding something right for you. I did my own install.. had to cut out the damper with my angle grinder. Ran my own 30’ liner down the chimney, hooked up the stove and we were in business. Good luck.. maybe more will come along with a bit more advice....
My father heats his house with wood, and over the last few years he and I have scrounged his stash. He’s got about 12 cords split, stacked and off the ground at his place. So as soon as I’m ready to burn at my house I can move some of that to my place.
I'm in full agreement with you. I installed my own insert after using the fireplace as it was for several years. Running a liner and removing the damper isn't really that tough. Installing the insert isn't too bad either, they are just heavy. A helper is a good thing for all of this, but you can absolutely do it yourself if you are slightly handy.
Yes. This. You can't do wrong by putting a liner in, but you need to pick the insert it first. There's different sizes, and different arrives need different sized liners. So you've got wood already to go, what size is it cut to? Also what are the dimensions of the fireplace opening?
