Pipes for fireplaces

The chimney is an integral part of the fireplace and the most important factor in ensuring its functionality. The quality of using a fireplace directly depends on chimney characteristics, because even the best fireplace insert with a poorly made chimney will not justify its cost.

Conversely, a conventional stove with a dual-circuit steel pipe with good smoke characteristics can be quite successfully operated.

By location, chimneys are divided into the following types:

• Internal chimneys, located inside the warm contour of the room, which pass through its entire height and extend through the chimney to the roof, are sometimes located in the supporting wall.
• External chimneys with side pipes, when the chimney is displayed to the side beyond the outer edges of the room and upward along the wall, often with a bypass of the overhang of the roof.

Let's consider the basic operational requirements for chimneys:

• Security. Its main criterion is the ability of the chimney to transfer high temperatures of gases and strong temperature drops for a long time, without collapsing and without losing its tightness and thermal insulation.
• The efficiency of the chimney is determined by the characteristic of the samopody per linear meter of the chimney. For different diameters and materials of the chimney there are different values ​​of self-reliance. The large diameter of the chimney is more efficient; in addition, the shape of the cross-section and the roughness of the surface are important, the circular cross-section with a smooth surface is preferable from the point of view of aerodynamics, since this form produces a smaller number of parasitic eddies.
• Convenience maintenance and repair. Each chimney has its own service life, in addition, all chimneys require periodic cleaning and maintenance, the chimney design must be such that maintenance is carried out quickly and without disassembling the main components.
• Durability. The main destructive factor affecting the chimney is the chemical environment, which is formed as a result of the condensate flowing down the chimney when the soot precipitated in the chimney dissolves.The key factors for ensuring the durability of the chimney are the ability of the chimney material to resist aggressive media and a decrease in the volume of this medium. To do this, you must choose chemically resistant materials and insulate the chimney with non-combustible insulation to reduce the volume of condensate.

Currently, there is a sufficiently large range of different materials for chimneys on the market, but we will immediately make a reservation; in this article we will only discuss those types of chimneys that are suitable for use with modern productive furnaces.

Main types of chimneys:

• Brick chimney - classic authentic version, time-tested. The decision to install such a chimney should be made at the design stage of the house, since such a chimney as it requires to install a strong foundation, or is generally placed in the supporting wall.The advantages of such a chimney - high durability, strength, good fire resistance. Cons - high price, worse thrust with a rectangular section, compared with a round pipe, low maintainability, high sedimentation of soot due to the rough inner surface.
• Stainless steel single loop modular chimney - the cheapest option possible, consists of separate modules-pipes, one meter long, elbows and tees, which are assembled as a constructor for sealant. The advantages of this type of chimney include low price, ease of installation. The disadvantages are the high heating temperature, which requires large spaces from the building structures and low durability, about 10-15 years, due to the formation of a large amount of condensate.
• Sandwich Modular Stainless Steel Modular Chimney - has the advantages of the previous version, such as ease of installation, and at the same time has quite acceptable durability, since the formation of condensate is reduced due to pipe insulation. On average, the manufacturer gives a guarantee for such pipes for about fifty years. It has only one drawback - a rather high cost.
• Ceramic chimney - a chimney of ceramic cups stacked on top of each other, wrapped in thermal insulation and installed in hollow cinder blocks. The glasses are interconnected on the sealant, the blocks are put on the solution. It has all the advantages of a brick chimney, but has a round smooth cross-section, which reduces the deposition of combustion products. Disadvantages - some features during installation, a lot of weight, the highest cost.

The choice of chimney and its installation is a very important process, which is better to trust specialists.

Calculation of the chimney section - the first and most important stage. We recommend using the Swedish formula for calculating the cross section, which most fully allows you to simulate cravings.

So in the case of buying a chimney kit from a heated sandwich pipe, the main thing is to ensure the tightness of the module joints, close the fireproof circuit, and correctly organize the output of the pipe on the roof. It is quite easy to bypass the supporting structures of the floors by installing additional elbows-bends.When installing brick and ceramic chimneys, the main thing is to ensure the good bearing properties of the foundation, it is also necessary to remember about the impossibility of organizing a simple bypass of building structures.

When the main task of installation - to isolate the fireproof circuit - is completed, you can think about finishing the chimney. Finishing the chimney and dampers is a creative process, inextricably linked with the design of the room. In the case of a chimney made from a sandwich pipe, the finishing can be done by constructing a gypsum cartridge box on metal profiles, protected from the inside by thermal insulation. If the chimney is made of brick or blocks, you can leave it as it is, in the interior style “loft”, or veneer with natural stone, marble, mosaic. In general, finishing the chimney and fireplace is not difficult if the insulation of the fireplace is made by technology. The fireplace is the best decoration of the room, creates warmth and comfort.