Sealing Fireplace Doors

Has anyone on here ever installed sealing fireplace doors? I have a double sided masonry fireplace and was thinking of it so the fireplace could throw a bit of heat and not let all the warm air blow up the chimney. Also would stop the campfire smell when we use the attic fan. Does anyone know any good sources of supply?

This would be my choice, available with supply air vents or without, my fireplace has a ash door in the bottom that I thought of using as an air source, you will need some air or no fire.http://www.kozyheat.com/pdf_files/airsealdoors.pdf

Doesn't it have glass doors on it already ? That may be as good as it will be with a true fireplace, you will always need some air to feed the fire.

It does have bifold doors already on both sides, tempered glass I think. Fires burn fast and furious even with the doors closed, and any heat made is swept up the flu. One website I found claimed that a sealing ceramic door will allow more radiant heat pass through than tempered glass. My hope is that an add on sealing door with adjustable air holes in the base would give me fire control ability and it would act more like a masonry heater than a big air vac. I was also wondering how hard it would be to install some of that refractory brick modern wood stoves have , but I am not sure if I would run into trouble w/ a much hotter fire than normal. I don't know where the nearest combustibles are buried within the wall.

In my case , I was thinking of the doors without the air vents and using the ash door in the bottom of the fireplace for air instead of using room air, their is a clean out door in the basement that I was planning to run a hose to for outside make up air.

Read this: http://rumford.com/tech14.html

[i]An open fire radiates at about 16 times more energy than the same fire would produce behind glass doors. http://rumford.com/radiant/formulas.html

daveuz wrote:An open fire radiates at about 16 times more energy than the same fire would produce behind glass doors.

That sounds good, but too bad it will go up the chimney and draw air from the rest of the house.

I would think doors would make it worse. Bottom line is the fireplace design is all wrong. Somewhere on this site is a section on a conversion: http://rumford.com/performamce.html Heating efficiency: Rumford fireplaces are the best wood-burning high intensity radiant heaters ever developed. They heat people and surfaces like sunshine and like the infrared heaters you see at outdoor restaurants, or in aircraft hangers or UPS garages where it's difficult and inefficient to try to heat air. Rumfords work best in open areas, big rooms with vaulted ceilings or even outdoors. Radiant heat raises the mean radiant temperature of surfaces and makes people feel comfortable at cooler air temperatures, just like the sun, so Rumford fireplaces are a good way to heat even with the windows open in moderate climates like those of England, the west coast or the midwest in the spring and fall. More about radiant heat and efficiency in a tech note.

AA130FIREMAN wrote:In my case , I was thinking of the doors without the air vents and using the ash door in the bottom of the fireplace for air instead of using room air, their is a clean out door in the basement that I was planning to run a hose to for outside make up air.

I would just get the doors with vents unless you have a smaller really well sealed house. A wood fire will appreciate pre warmed combustion air and should result in less creosote in your flu.

I don't buy the whole open fireplace thing, I would like to get the sealing doors and possible add some refractory brick. Basically mimic something like this w/ out the gravity vents.

http://www.icc-rsf.com/en/rsf/oracle-fireplace

will be interesting to see how it works out.

I would close the doors on the side you want to close and dry stack fire bricks inside of the fireplace next to the closed doors to see how things work if it does help then sealing/mortaring the bricks might even be better. Trial and error with fire brick is the cheap way to go I would think.

Well, I assume you are not into making a mess in order to get a better setup. Not everyone is.

But, if you were, then you could end up w/ a very efficient setup.

A little demo and dust and you could have a nice looking insert running in there...maybe you don't want coal at that location...but wood pellets would be way better than what you have there now.