Episode 004 1995 - 96 Season

| Fireplace Installation | Steel Framing | Cutting Board | Fabrics | Entry Doors | Lawn Sprinkler Repair | How Do I Qualify? | |

To order a Video Tape, call 1-800-TO-BUILD and ask for Episode #004.


Fireplace Installation

Al Carrell : Michael, I think everybody would like to have a fireplace in their home.

Michael Holigan : Yes, and Al we sell a lot that have more than one fireplace. You see request them in their kitchen, their bathrooms, their bedrooms, everywhere throughout the house.

A.C.: Oh, it really is great to have one in...particularly in the bedroom or someplace like that. It's sort of romantic...

M.H.: Ah-huh.

A.C.: ...it gives you a new attitude...

M.H.: Ah-huh.

A.C.: ...and also helps to heat up the house.

M.H.: Yes, and it's very easy to do now with this type of fireplace. This is a pre-fab fireplace with zero clearance, so you can put it anywhere in a home. You can put it in corners. You can put it in walls between two rooms with a see-through fireplace. It's very handy. It's not heavy like a brick fireplace, so it's not going to crack up when the wood floor starts to move up and down.

A.C.: Yeah, and it's not going to come crashing down. I hate it when that happens.

M.H.: That's a big plus. Joe's already put some of the pipe in. You want to slide this on back,...

A.C.: Sure.

M.H.: ...and we'll get started leveling?

A.C.: I'll sure do it. With this type fireplace you can have it level it with the floor or you can a raised hearth, which I sort of like, except I hate lifting. Joe and I are going to lift this up and let Michael slide those blocks in under there. Way to go. Take your time Michael. It's really easy to hold this four-million pound...there we go.

M.H.: Joe has leveled up our fireplace now. He's added our pipe to it, so now we need to go up top to our fire block and add our fire stop. This piece of metal is a fire stop and it holds the pipe away from the fire block which is this 5/8 inch thick piece of lumber. Now the purpose for this is if a fire ever started down below in your house and it was coming up through the chase you don't want it to burst into the attic. It's going to take this a while to burn, so it'll slow down a fire in the house. I'll hand that up to Joe. He's going to put it around the pipe and it'll hold it at least one inch away.

A.C.: Ideally, you could run that pipe or flue all the way straight up, but sometimes that's not possible, and so, we have to use an elbow. And this gives you an idea of how the pipe is put together. There's an inner pipe and then there's an outer pipe. The air space around here protects it, so that this part stays cool and this part gets hot. And, this is why when it's all put together, you only have to have a one-inch clearance for this pipe. If you'll hand that on up to Joe, Michael, I think he'll get that in place.

M.H.: As you can see, now that our fire stop is in place, we've maintained a minimum of one-inch from our fire block so as not to start a fire right here with our flue. If you come down here you can look that our fireplace is maintained at least a half an inch clearance all the way around that, and that's all that the fireplace needs if you're buying a zero clearance fireplace. Now let's take a quick look at the exterior air intake.

A.C.: For any fire to burn, it has to have air. Now the normal fireplace is going to take the air from inside the house. That's air you've already paid to heat. It's very expensive air and it's going to be wasted. What we're going to do is provide for external air. And we're going to do that with a ducting system that comes from the outside, brings the air all the way down to the fireplace and that really is going to save you energy.

M.H.: Later, we'll come back and put screws in that and wrap it in tape. Now our pipe goes all the way through the attic and to the outside through the roof. Now what that's going to allow is for a fire to draw fresh air from outside to burn the fire instead of burning the warm air that's in your living room. Now we put a switch on it here to open and close so we can shut it off when we're not burning a fire and that way we're not letting cool air into the house during the winter time. Now this little set up only cost $20.00. You're going to save more than that in the first month that you burn a fire. So make sure that if you're remodeling or building a new home and you add a fireplace, that it has an exterior air intake.

Episode 004 1995 - 96 Season

| Fireplace Installation | Steel Framing | Cutting Board | Fabrics | Entry Doors | Lawn Sprinkler Repair | How Do I Qualify? | |

To order a Video Tape, call 1-800-TO-BUILD and ask for Episode #004.