Yes you can paint a brick fireplace but not of course inside the firebox.The first thing to realise is that once you paint it, you cannot un-paint it. The paint will be worked into the small holes in the brick and will not come back out.First clean the brick as best you can, probably using TSP.L...
Greg Costelloe from Costelloe & Company in Concord, Ontario, is one of those innovative fireplace experts that I love to talk to. In the first photo, he is showing me a standard direct vent gas fireplace insert. This is the kind of unit that you can build a fake fireplace around, or you can...
Brenda from Port Hardy, B.C. says that her wood burning insert smells of soot when it is not in use.The problem is obviously one of air coming down the chimney. Either the exhaust fans in the house are drawing air when there is no fire to maintain an upward draft, or the wind is twisted around on...
Not all gas fireplaces develop a greyish haze on the glass window and sometimes a bit all over the inside of gas fireplaces, but many do. Most manufacturers that we contacted didn't know what the haze was but they assumed it had to do with breaking in the heated parts of the fireplace, and gener...
One of our viewers caught our cameras in the renovation centre and asked a really good question. He has a sealed combustion gas fire place insert and has been told that both the fresh air coming in and the exhaust gasses going out have to go all the way up the chimney and out. He wanted to know...
Free standing gas fireplaces, gas fireplace inserts and in this segment from my TV show, a cross breed between the two put a very inefficient fireplace back into operation. Yes you need a chimney liner when you do something like this - that is the duct sticking out of the fireplace in the photo....
Chimneys : The Six CommandmentsChimney does not belong to the house, but to its appliance.More carefully sized to the heating appliance.Be insulated.Be tightly constructed.Be located within the heating envelope of the house.Terminate at or near the highest point of the building.The best resource...
Open fireplaces are not heating systems. They have traditionally been built on an outer wall, creating sealing problems for air barriers and wasting lots of heat through the back of the chimney. Fireplaces should always be built on the inside walls -- if you build one at all. The problem w...
We had to go to the Dimplex factory in Toronto to find out how they make a smoke-and-mirrors fireplace look really really like a real wood fire. It is quite amazing. The flames are a rotisserie of aluminum foil reflecting lights up and off a mirror.The bricks on the back of the fireplace are ac...
Getting soot off fireplace bricks is not an easy job, especially if it has cooked in over a long period of time. We tested: vinegar & water ; baking soda & water ; bubbly soda water ; and muriatic acid.The Vinegar did all right, the baking soda better, and the regular bubbly soda water ...
