Greetings. We moved into a 1993 home last fall. This home has a fireplace with an Xtec woodinsert in it. When I inspected the home, we noticed the tile chimney flue (10"?) was in bad shape. It appeared it was never cleaned. The old homeowner had someone come out. They put in a stainless steel liner (8") that is now connected to the Xtec woodinsert.
Over the winter, had problems with the stove. We had to leave the door open a crack to make it burn, it created way too much heat, it is extrememly noisy (fireplace in living room) from the fan, and you can hardly see the fire because the glass soots up fast. I've called the Xtec builders and talked with them several times to make sure all is set up ok. Now, we constantly get the smell of smoke in the house. I think that the air is heating the creasote/soot built up around the exterior of the insert and blowing into the room when the air conditioner kicks on. Regardless, we want to get rid of this beast.
We would like to remove the woodinsert and just use the fireplace. There is no damper or anything else. One guy told me that in order to do this and prevent smoke, I would have to stack a pile of bricks in the firebox opening (36 wide x 30 high) and build a fire on that. I thought about putting in a factory zero clearance type fireplace so I had a surround to blow out hot air if I wanted it and it would provide the glass doors and screen. I was told I couldn't use one of those because they needed a dual type stainless liner system and to do that, I would have to tear out the existing tiles and start over.
What can we do to revert to a traditional fireplace? Any ideas? Thanks.
Over the winter, had problems with the stove. We had to leave the door open a crack to make it burn, it created way too much heat, it is extrememly noisy (fireplace in living room) from the fan, and you can hardly see the fire because the glass soots up fast. I've called the Xtec builders and talked with them several times to make sure all is set up ok. Now, we constantly get the smell of smoke in the house. I think that the air is heating the creasote/soot built up around the exterior of the insert and blowing into the room when the air conditioner kicks on. Regardless, we want to get rid of this beast.
We would like to remove the woodinsert and just use the fireplace. There is no damper or anything else. One guy told me that in order to do this and prevent smoke, I would have to stack a pile of bricks in the firebox opening (36 wide x 30 high) and build a fire on that. I thought about putting in a factory zero clearance type fireplace so I had a surround to blow out hot air if I wanted it and it would provide the glass doors and screen. I was told I couldn't use one of those because they needed a dual type stainless liner system and to do that, I would have to tear out the existing tiles and start over.
What can we do to revert to a traditional fireplace? Any ideas? Thanks.
