Understanding fireplace liners

Also known as flue liners or chimney liners, the fireplace liners are the passage ways found in the fireplace through which carbon monoxide and smoke use to travel and escape from your home safely. The stainless steel chimney liners, for example, do separate the furnace exhaust or even the fireplace from the rest of the house. Home owners often seek to know the condition of the whole chimney plus the fireplace liners before moving to the new home. The stainless steel chimney liners have the following advantages discussed.

The stainless steel liner is a single piece which is long and continuous. It is not sectional, meaning there are no connectors or mortar joints to separate or shift like in the clay tile liners. They have a life time warranty and the protection they provide for the fireplace is superior. These steel liners also meet the code’s minimum requirements for safe operations. The fire clay flue tile liner can easily get cracked and the cracks open wider during the heating periods and allow gases to pass, this time through the chimney walls. Since the gases are acidic, they attack the masonry and shorten the life of this structure. The stainless chimney liners do exhaust the poisonous gas for the safety of your home.

While old houses require chimney liner installation or even replacement quite often, the newer houses have a fireplace already and modern liner installed. In deciding what type of chimney flue is needed there are a number of factors. These factors include the dimensions of the chimney, the chimney’s age, the masonry condition, type of fireplace, the flue opening, and analysis of angles and bends. If one goes for the cast-in-place concrete liner option, then a professional’s assistance is required because of the complex labor involved. Today, there are inventions that are underway to improve the fireplace operations and safety of the homes as well.

The current invention focuses on improvement to fireplace liners whereby air will be circulated through an exchange chamber that is full of heat. There will be automatic opening and closing of an access, paving way for the outside air to enter into the heat chamber. A duct which connects the heat chamber to the outside air is also in place. Within the duct, there is a movable plate in closed position when there is no fire in the fireplace such that no cold air from outside can enter the warm room.

When there is a fire within the fireplace, the heat exchange chamber becomes hot and this heat is conducted to a specially designed bimetallic coil. The coil will warm and wind up causing the closed plate to open hence permit the outside cold air to enter. The heated air draws the outside air through the duct into the room. When the fire dies within the fireplace, the coil will cool down and expand its shape and the closure plate gets back to its closed position preventing the room from cooling down due to the outside air. Unlike the common fireplace liners where one does not need to remember closing the plate when the fire dies down, or open closure plate when heat exceeds, all this will be done automatically as the invention stipulates.

You can buy Fireplace Liners and other Chimney Supplies from FireSideChimneySupply.com.