My wife and I just recently moved into a new (to us) house. The house has upstairs and downstairs (finished basement) fireplaces, which is somewhat unusual in Alabama. Her parents use a fireplace insert to heat their home, so we decided that we would attempt heat with one as well. I did some research and settled on a Napoleon 1401 for the downstairs fireplace because it wasn't terribly expensive and has a semi-decent sized firebox (2.25 cu ft) and twin blowers. Also, I figured it was light enough for me to move out by myself to clean the masonry chimney. What? Clean the chimney? Yes, indeed, for the first month I used the insert venting straight into the chimney. I did this based on local people's, including her parents, advise on how to install it. I did see the instructions for connecting to a liner and a few articles on the internet about relining your chimney, but I came away from those thinking it was mainly for those with chimneys that were in bad shape. We had had a sweep come in and clean ours thouroughly when we moved in, so I did not think much of it. Then I discovered these forums...
After reading through the various posts here, I decided lining would be a good idea, for safety and performance. My wife was not too hip on spending more money, but I after explaining the safety issue, she agreed. Having grown up with heat from an unlined installation, she was unconvinced that performance would improve.
Our kits arrived last Friday, so Sunday I got up on the roof and we installed a fully insulated liner down our 25' interior chimney. It was a pretty straight shot down the old flue with only some slight bends near the bottom. Overall, it only took us about 4 hours from start to finish to get it all hooked up and ready. I also took some of the foil backed insulation and placed it on the outside of the insert that goes into the fireplace, in hopes of retaining more of the heat from the blowers. All we can say is, WOW!! What a HUGE difference! Before the liner, the insert would heat decently, but getting and maintaining a good hot fire was somewhat difficult and kinda hit or miss. I was having to run the draft all the way open most of the time to get any kind of performance from it. Starting a fire or reloading, I was having to leave the door cracked for a good long while to get the wood to burn and stay burning. Closing it off halfway would choke off the fire most of the time. Now, the stove is much easier to operate and the draft control works rather precisely. Starting and reloading are a piece of cake; in fact, the wood seems to catch easier with the door shut now. The air coming out from the blowers is also MUCH hotter now than it was before, with a similarly sized fire. We are very pleased with our results and we did it all ourselves for around $2000 (insert and all). Now if I can just talk her into another one for upstairs...
Many thanks to all of the contributors on this forum!
After reading through the various posts here, I decided lining would be a good idea, for safety and performance. My wife was not too hip on spending more money, but I after explaining the safety issue, she agreed. Having grown up with heat from an unlined installation, she was unconvinced that performance would improve.
Our kits arrived last Friday, so Sunday I got up on the roof and we installed a fully insulated liner down our 25' interior chimney. It was a pretty straight shot down the old flue with only some slight bends near the bottom. Overall, it only took us about 4 hours from start to finish to get it all hooked up and ready. I also took some of the foil backed insulation and placed it on the outside of the insert that goes into the fireplace, in hopes of retaining more of the heat from the blowers. All we can say is, WOW!! What a HUGE difference! Before the liner, the insert would heat decently, but getting and maintaining a good hot fire was somewhat difficult and kinda hit or miss. I was having to run the draft all the way open most of the time to get any kind of performance from it. Starting a fire or reloading, I was having to leave the door cracked for a good long while to get the wood to burn and stay burning. Closing it off halfway would choke off the fire most of the time. Now, the stove is much easier to operate and the draft control works rather precisely. Starting and reloading are a piece of cake; in fact, the wood seems to catch easier with the door shut now. The air coming out from the blowers is also MUCH hotter now than it was before, with a similarly sized fire. We are very pleased with our results and we did it all ourselves for around $2000 (insert and all). Now if I can just talk her into another one for upstairs...
Many thanks to all of the contributors on this forum!
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