Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum banner

Winter Work

17K views 154 replies 13 participants last post by  fjn 
#1 ·
Some pics from whats going on this site. The house is a farm house replica. Its perfect.



The other side of the house





We had 5500 Old Virgina bricks trucked up here in early December. All the cubes are a frozen mess of coarse right....



We build pyramids as we go and blast them with the heater. They will dry out in an hour. This one is about half the size of what it was.



This wall will actually be inside of a closet.





Couple fireplaces back to back off set.

 
See less See more
8
#111 ·
Well this isn't structural work (it is because its a retaining wall but I'm sure there's a wall behind it, I thought I saw a 4" corner) Purely (mostly) cosmetic and if that's what the customer wants and has a pocket full of money who is anyone to argue? There is no denying that walls like that take a high degree of skill, very well executed in my opinion even if it isn't entirely to my taste
 
#112 ·
Why the high skill? The stones run like books....the job is merely setting and cleaning up points,.most likely done with grinders due to the thinness ie fragility...... No one is argueing. Rather... it's more like not falling all over the job merely because it's rubber stamped "top quality"
If that was a rubble granite mix with large sq and rectangles then I'd say it's high skill as I'd feel my wrist and elbow!
I guess it's where and when one learned the trade, never the less we live in a diamond cutters masonry world today!

There are walls a galore failing from wrongly laid drylook, it's gone viral.
This one has stratified grains making for the strips so the beds will be flatish however many drylook jobs have beds way sharper than 60% which used to be gospel,now long abandoned by most and the key reason for their failure.

If this particular wall is a veneer in front of concrete and not slushed tight ''like most I see'' it's days are short.
 
#114 ·
;) In veneering conc walls the biggest enemy is having voids behind the stone. The wall is mainly all flat / thin stones so it should be fine as long as the conc wall doesnt shift etc. I'd suppose control joints should be integral and aligned thru the composite wall at 20' intervals, as in any long conc wall.

We use 16 gauge ties drilled on one end with wedget or comparable anchors

I still dont like strips .....to me its for novice stone workers 101 with a brick hammer and a grinder and I suppose you'd be better doing the larger patterned stuff with pitched perimeter's and bellied faces! God I love those facets........ ''whole bellys"....you can have the ''dry strips''....getting hungry now:laughing:

maybe when you get a nice one I'll give you a hand but hurry, my arms are shinking.lol
thought you'd like this
http://www.perceptivetravel.com/issues/1109/new_england.html
 
#119 ·
RE; The opening to be 40" once it's all done. the owner wanted a fireplace that made no heat really as he doesn't want the dining room to hot for diner parties. He did mention that he might put a wood stove in it.

NO HEAT is up to him [with the fire intensity] because no matter how big the throat the radiating heat is the same. What he wont like though is if a large throat is needed is the rest of the house quickly freezing.

thats a nice situation to keep the throat at 8 or 9". just be shure to keep the damper near 12'' above the opening.....

I was at my son's last night and we had his 36'' orton variation going nicely with the damper at half. It is 18'' deep [plenty of room]and the slant is only about 3'' on 48'' ie the 12'' damper above opening height.
It is on an outside wall so the smoke chamber had to be leaned to clear the header at door height.

They are just learning to close the gap under the attic door and preheat the chimney...oh and that big ass kitchen hood fan they have! lol

I took a video maybe I can upload...having trouble with youtube.

Sean going up high with a fp opening doesnt make it lazy but rather sensitive to mistakes,staring out with too little damper/throat over lintel
lintel height.
 
#120 ·
A fireplace that's has too high an opening draws the same amount of air from a larger space so the air it draws comes in slower and "lazier" creating potential turbulence and smoking. As you say if the throat and smoke chamber are well designed to compensate, (tighter throat opening to a taller leaner smoke chamber) it won't make a difference, but generally speaking a taller opening makes for poorer draw and a lazy draught
 
#123 ·
Heres a good fireplace book I recall being in the barn since I was a kid along with The Bennett Ireland Book on fireplaces.

It has just about every ''to do'' that made the conventional out of the morphed Rumford Slant. Some of them were what caused the demise of the Slanted Rumford.

Some styles do come close to the BIA an how I do mine

https://archive.org/details/DonleyBookOfSuccessfulFireplaces
 
#124 ·
Nice book, ill order it for a memento! I think those numbers are pretty much standard everywhere. I have to make a better effort to have the smoke chamber slopes of equal angles. Sometimes Its easier to do something different to cut over a chimney or whatnot.
 
#126 ·
Carl it's Frank to friends... ;)

Fireplaces are so tricky. They run with throat to opening ratios from 1:10 ''unchoked orton'' to 1:20 as with Buckley's straight backs and now with the 2 year long 1:30 which has become easy.
But now with a ultra high 1:40 and 50 ''where it works for hours then ever so slight leaks apear'' is driving me nuts.

I have greenish wood and I suspect it has something to do with it but I'm uncertain. I am trying to shorten the throat's length to keep the smoke in the rising plume, like that of a stright back so epa testing will be a cinch esecially at a very high ratio. I have done it successfully at the 1;30 but Im now compelled to master the 1:40 at least...

There are two masony kit fireplaces out there which compete with Buckley. One is Moberg's whom is supposed to be a fireplace guru and lives near Jim....the other is the Renaissance from Canada which uses a two passage throat to keep breast air separate from the heated rear smoky air....it won clean air awards however with the doors open it works on a terriblle 1:10 throat opening ratio...ouch! Their patent even mentions the Buckley Rumford epa test.

One thing certain is if the throat doesnt do the choking then the home's envelope will, which results in very cold rooms. Air is still needed with high chokes but at such small amounts that the everage home's crevaces suffice...I know I've been doing it 2 years now.

Ive had a few investors ask about overheating due to a small throat opening......in which I thought was nuts,.. as long as the ample masonry and air space is provided. Then when I mentioned to my inventor friend he laughed and said, "Well dont build such a big fire"...lol

However there was one night when it went down to the low teens with 20 to 40 mph sustained winds and we lost power. I used up some old elm logs 8 to 12'' and kept the fireplace ''roaring all night''....I did put my hand on the brick below the mantle about 5' high and it was pretty hot...but not enough to burn the mantle albeit it is rabbited in an inch with 8'' masonry behind it.

A 36'' may get hotter say at about 4' where it's mantle may start...I havent gotten that far as I have been side tracked with new higher ratio asparations. :whistling


Karl have you ever seen the library in milford center or that round tower built with the pink granite by deep reiver area. misty rose whatever?

I love the large round rock foundation base on that library.....however whomever repointed it should be ashamned. Granite bridges there too its a nice stone setting.
 
#129 ·
I got to the bottom of the first page and laughed at this.

The performance of many brick fireplaces can be improved immediately by removing the throat damper and smoke shelf, and installing a chain-operated damper at the top of the chimney. The results are a smooth, straight path for the exhaust and less smoking when a fire burns.
I dont think it is correct.

When a vestal damper is open its not the damper that hinders the draft of the fireplace.

I think a lot of masons start the smoke chambers way to wide. Especially if they start them to the sides of the brick walls, and dont move them in 4". then they are too flat, or places that catch smoke next to the flues. If they dont build an isolation wall next to the furnace flue that creates some issue.

There are all kinds of problems, but the smoke shelf isnt one of them. Or the vestal damper, I dont even understand what that meant.

The only advantage a top mount damper has is it keep the flue pre warmed. Pop it open and you think you have a good draw on the chimney when its just a warm flue already. Once the fire gets underway it still needs to perform, hot air up, cold air down, ect.

Im not sure im in need of a book or article, perhaps someone looking to write one might seek me out, not the other way around.
 
#131 ·
re the article;
Why Fireplaces Fail
When it comes to traditional open masonry fireplaces, masons have perpetuated outdated ideas about the smoke shelf, the mysteries of the smoke chamber, and the need for wide, but shallow-throat dampers. Today, it is clear that all three of these features work against successful fireplace performance (see Figure 1). Figure 1. Traditional fireplaces leak smoke into living space and don’t produce heat efficiently. The curving smoke chamber, the throat damper, and the smoke shelf all decrease the stability of the chimney draft. The smoke shelf and shallow-throat damper both act as obstacles to straight exhaust flow. And the smoke chamber actually reduces the strength of a chimney’s draft by slowing and cooling the fireplace exhaust. The performance of many brick fireplaces can be improved immediately by removing the throat damper and smoke shelf, and installing a chain-operated damper at the top of the chimney. The results are a smooth, straight path for the exhaust and less smoking when a fire burns.
 
#136 ·
Sean I posted a reply to the paragraph I posted, but it didnt post...I basically said it was all bull.
Carl is right about the shelf. It can be slanted upward with the chamber as some in the 1700's did. I rebuilt 5 of my neighbor's that had no shelfs like that.
A shelf is said to be bad if over 12'' i.e. The Rosin Papers.

Dr. Rosin also says the thin throat into a big chimney is bad like Sean says.However it isnt so......heck I've been doing over 2 years of 1:30 throat ratio burns with a 1-3/4'' by 47'' throat.

My short throat test went very well as I said on the other thread.
I.E. my 50'' slanted Rumford is burning nicely with a throat half the normal length yet still at a 1:30 ratio.:thumbup:

I'd love to elaborate but I can't yet.
You all should come join the Rumford Fireplace blog...it's gonna get good.
Wonder what Jim Buckley will say now that a large Rumford Slant has a equally short and more frugal throat. :eek:
 
#139 ·
The smoke shelf is supposed to act as a air "diode" and impede the downward airflows with restricting the updraft.. similar to reversion cones in exhaust headers and organ piping, and somewhat as smoothing the air flow changes from wind gusts, A "shock" absorber/spleen/draft accumulator for the air column flow.
 
#143 ·
http://heatkit.com/docs/rosin.PDF see figure 38 It's Dr Rosin's fave...no shelf....the old 1700 fp's which had one large kitch fp with satalite boxes adjacent and above had to have their chambers lean imediately back....they merely built the chamber over the throat in a leaning fashion like a tilted flue...hence the bottom of the chamber flue was also leaned as one widening flue at the throat.

About Dr. Rosin
He admits air is stretchable ie expands with heat and compresses especially from the flame to the throat, but odly he stresses streamline everything.
However have you ever seen a Rosin F.P....Very short and offensively designed ie toatlly non vortex friendly just as the straight back clay pre cast throats.
Everything flows nicely upward and out with the home's warm air....ie its all about the throat ratio.

ps air stretches from a draft's velocity at the throat hence high pressure before the throat and low after it in the the smoke chamber...hence the shock absorbing action..reversed with down drafts.

Shelfs dont hurt....if on an exterior fp they take time to warm though.
They are ash shedding vortex chambers which some rather have than in the atmophere. Again unless overly deep and cold they are good to have. Heck ash only escapes with high flow and heat loss anyhow!:thumbup: They also blot water!

Shelfs really dont stop eddys it's the throat velocity and throat chamber. The words throat chamber are too often not used together.:no:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top