Open masonry fireplace smoke chamber opinions.

[Squisher]

Hello,

The more I see other open masonry fireplaces the less I like the looks of the parging in mine. I've tried to get a decent pic looking up to the left side of the smoke chamber through the damper. You can clearly see deteriorated parging that is penetrated by creosote with lots of cracking and some pieces missing. But if you look closely where the metal from the Heat form meets the parging. There pieces are missing and insulation is sticking throug? Besides the obvious defects, that doesn't seem right to me? Shouldn't that be solid masonry behind there? Or is ther some type of a void there on old heat forms that may have insulation in it? It looks almost like the parging that had been there must've been stuck to the insulation?

All comments welcome.

 

[Squisher]

Here's the fireplace in case anyone's wondering.

 

[ccmac]

Well, it is difficult to see the picture well, but I will say, it is a common thing for a mason to use material such as insulation to fill a void then parge over the area. You may just be seeing a thin area of the parging where the insulation is coming through

 

[Squisher]

Thanks for the reply. Good to know that that's common practice.