When buying a ready-made cottage project, you are forced to put up with the space provided for the hearth. But if your dream castle is only in plans, you make sketches, think, and consider different layout options and several floors, then already at this stage you need to think about the location of the fireplace.
Before ordering an individual house project, it is advisable to have complete certainty on all basic issues. A solid fuel stove, despite its advanced age, in its modern interpretation is a complex technical device. To prevent it from looking like an alien archaism in a twenty-first-century home, it is necessary to take into account several requirements in advance. The firebox, supply channels, and chimney for the fireplace must match each other and the house as a whole.
The requirements for the location of the firebox that limit the developer’s imagination come down to three main points:
- Providing access to channels that remove combustion products;
- Optimized in terms of heat transfer. Consistency with other heat sources.
- A sufficient flow of fresh air into the room where the fireplace is located for the combustion process.
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Recommendations For Choosing the Type Of Fireplace
Today there are still supporters of the “old school” who prefer open-type fireplaces built by a mason. In a situation where there is a huge selection of ready-made fireboxes, the stubbornness of the eccentrics who prefer a fireplace that spits burning firebrands does not evoke any emotions other than condescension. Installing all kinds of protective screens does not help; even Einstein could not calculate the flight trajectory of a “shot” twig. People who choose a fireplace with an open firebox can only be advised not to leave it unattended.
You can often hear this argument in defense of open fireplaces: people have been using them for hundreds of years without fear of fires. This is true. But we must not forget that fireplaces used to be only in rich houses. Owners of open fireboxes could easily afford to assign two servants to each burning flame for round-the-clock surveillance. A fireplace with a closed combustion chamber and a steel chimney is a smart choice in terms of safety, comfort, and durability.
What About the Chimney?
Each fireplace requires a separate channel for the removal of combustion products. The diameter of the chimney must correspond to the data specified in the firebox passport. The minimum radius of a round channel is 150 mm. There is no point in building square and rectangular wells made of brick. Firstly, from a physics point of view, a round channel provides less resistance to airflow. Secondly, financial costs, taking into account the subsequent installation of the liner, will exceed the budget for the purchase of ready-made smoke channels.
The chimney should be as straight as possible. Knees and horizontal sections can be made, but only if another option for the location of the firebox is unacceptable to the owner.
Each turn of the chimney reduces the draft, forcing the use of a larger diameter pipe. Concentration on horizontal areas may lead to the need to install a smoke exhauster with an electric motor or a rotary turbine. It is possible to install these two devices in a synchronously operating electronically controlled unit. However, this increases costs significantly and does not guarantee the complete safety of the fireplace.
One can easily imagine a situation in which the power supply was cut off at night in calm weather. The fireplace is burning. A turbine without wind and a fan without current do not work. The traction is weak. Carbon monoxide begins to seep into living spaces… Should I just give up unnecessary horizontal areas? Moreover, they are very difficult to clean.
Modern houses use only ceramic or steel chimneys produced by industry leaders such as Schiedel. If the channel passes through a room on the second floor, it is advisable to buy special cylinders with maximum heat transfer. Thanks to this solution, two rooms will be heated at once. The only safety requirement: the pipe on the second floor must have a fence made of non-combustible materials. A person passing by should not be able to accidentally touch a pipe heated to five hundred degrees.
Without Fresh Air, it Will Go Out
From the point of view of random air flows from the outside, a modern house is very different from old houses: there are no cracks in the windows, there is no draft from the attic, and the doors close tightly. And while burning, the fireplace needs to “eat” 7 cubic meters of air every hour. Therefore, when arranging a firebox, be sure to plan the laying of special channels into the thickness of the floor or wall so as not to spoil the appearance of the room. The second end of the supply pipe ends on the outer surface of the house wall. It is advisable to drill a hole on the leeward side, then an excellent draft will be ensured for the entire service life of the fireplace.
Requirements For the Safe Arrangement Of Ducts and Fireboxes
Any firebox must have good thermal insulation on three sides, and the box on all four. The calculation of the thickness of the insulation depends on the characteristics of the material used. Most structures today use vermiculite, basalt wool, or calcium silicate. Thermal insulation of fireplaces has the following goals:
- Maintain the maximum temperature of the heated air before releasing it through the holes at the top of the box. Heating of the room occurs due to convection.
- Do not allow the external structure of the fireplace to heat up.
- Block the transfer of heat from the firebox to the supporting structures of the house. Otherwise, this will lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the fireplace in brick cottages and a fire in wooden cottages.
It is better to place the fireplace in a common space with a staircase to the second floor. From the point of view of the efficiency of heating the entire house, this will be the optimal solution.
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Cast iron solid fireboxes should be placed at a distance of two meters from the furniture. These fireplaces bring to perfection the idea of making the fire quickly share heat with a person: a metal body with heat-resistant glass heats up instantly. The ancestors of such fireplaces were the “potbelly stoves” familiar to the 20th century, but it’s better not to joke with us: insulation of the nearby wall and floor with calcium silicate is necessary.
Nowadays, only one fireplace is usually built in a country house. This can be explained simply: cottage owners regard the firebox not as an additional source of heat, but rather as the mystical “heart of the house.” Religious rituals associated with the cult of family and home are performed around the fireplace.