Chimney Smoke Stacks

Can't say without some inspection. Heating boiler? Water heater? Are there clean outs?

Boris snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid wrote in news:XnsB1978F8BCAD61Borisinvalidinvalid@135.181.20.170:

The pictures were taken by a chimney sweep who swept the center stack last year. He did it from on top of the roof. He did not mention anything about the other two stacks or if they should be capped.

I suspect the two stacks may have been for when there was only the fireplace, and the stove had not yet been installed. If they were at one time functional, I wonder why I don't see any soot in them.

I assume the two stacks were abandoned when the center stack was installed for the stove. It's obvious from the picture that the two stacks have not been blocked off, so it's not known how rain water is draining.

The house has a gambrel style roof, and the top of the chimney is 26 feet high. It's very hard to get someone to go on the roof, let alone someone to do the masonry repairs. Scaffolding will be needed.

On my first house two stacks went to 2 fireplaces, 1 in basement, 1 on

Bob F snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:v52ncm$2q4oj$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

This is a seasonal home and I'm not familiar with it, but there's only one fireplace. There is a split system heat/cooling system with an air handler. I will look under the house, as I can walk there, and see if there's any ducting that may be connected to a stack. I do know that a gas-fired furnace does require venting, but the split is electric. There is no propane or natural gas in this area.

Thanks for the reply.

Is is an older house that might have had an oil furnace at some time?

What do the insides of the chimneys look like?

Boris wrote on 6/20/2024 5:07 PM:

This is my analysis:

That fireplace is a closed system when the door of the fireplace is closed. The fireplace is designed to vent hot exhaust through the center hole, and let fresh air in through the other two holes to aid combustion. That's why the other two holes are so clean. If the other two holes don't exist, then the fire log and rising exhaust will create negative pressure inside the fireplace to draw fresh air from inside the house, which in turn will draw cold air from outside the house through house door gaps into the house.

Bob F snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:v52sr0$2q4oi$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

The house was built in 1978, and it's claim to fame was that the entire subdivision is electric, because electricity was cheap then, and the granite geology made it difficult to install propane or natural gas lines.

It's hard to tell without going on the roof. The roof is high and at a very steep angle (gambrel roof), and my balance is no good anymore. I do have a chimney sweep that swept the flu last year. He's the one that told me about all the cracks in the chimne. That's why I'm trying to find a masonry that will repair the chimney, as shown on the pics in the link I gave. My curiosity was peaked when I started thinking about why there's no smoke coming out of the two stacks, and if they need to be capped.

=?UTF-8?B?8J+YjiBNaWdodHkgV2FubmFiZSDinIU=?= <@.> wrote in news:iK6dO.34277$ snipped-for-privacy@fx09.ams:

I think that may be the answer. There were always three stacks, the middle for the original fireplace, and the two others for venting. When the stove was installed, the middle stack was still used to vent smoke, and the other two for venting. The other two have no caps, which is curious. Any ideas about that?

I'd cap them anyway. Keeps out birds, squirrels, bats, and anything else that flies. Get stainless steel.

There are some made for multi-flue

Boris wrote on 6/21/2024 12:29 AM:

My guess is that the other two holes have no pipes going down to the fireplace. The fireplace has a conical top funneling the exhaust up to the center hole, and then the other two holes just let fresh air in. The two open holes are too small to let too much rain in, and there might be a little basin below the two holes to catch the rain and then dissipate the rain water through evaporation. There might be a wire mesh below the two holes to prevent birds and insects from coming through.

Can a scissor-lift or a boom lift access the site ?

My guess is that the center chimney now contains a stainless steel chimney pipe down to the stove to work properly with the wood stove. The different chimney pipes on the other 2 does suggest the air inlet suggestion may be right.

I'm surprised no one else agreed with your last sentence. I see no reason they couldn't just be decoration. Drive around and look at the expensive houses. They don't have rinkydink single chimneys. They have multiple chimneys, from the fireplace on the first floot, the one in the master bedroom, and the one in the basement. So you don't have 2 other fireplaces, you can still have a chimney that makes you look rich. And looking rich is more important than being rich.

Why not call the chimney sweep you hired last year. I just had my eyes examined and she didnt' bother to tell me what my vision was, so how can you expect the chimney sweep to tell you details about fantasy chimneys if you don't ask.

Or call any chimney sweep and ask him on the phone if there are decoratiion-only chimneys. I'm sure that 40 years ago I read that there are but I could be wrong or what I read might possibly have been wrong. Best to call 30 or 60 minutes before the office closes, when they've usually finished their work for the day and have more time to talk.

First please read my earlier post, directly replying to Boris.

Then how can they function as fresh air intake vents?

In where?

I came back to this thread to suggest to Boris -- and I am suggesting it

-- that he put his head in the fireplace and look up and in all directions to see if there is an opening from more than one flue, and if there's not, it means the other two are decoration only. Your answer above would say they can be vents even if they don't go to the fireplace, but I don't think that can be.

Frankly, even if there were an opening from more than one flue, how is the flue to know it's for intake and not exhaust? IIRC when fireplaces were build with fresh air intakes, they were short horizontal channels that came out of the house just on the other side of the back wall of the fireplace.

If people can see the top of the chimney and it's worth it to you, I'd get a cap that caps all 3 vents even though 2 don't do anything. I think it would look nicer.

Another interesting point is that a lot of these webpages use "vent" when they mean exhaust vent, when to me, vent by itself means fresh air vent**. So when they use one word "vent" to talk about a chimney that would have smoke coming out of it, reading the word vent sounds to me and probably others like they're talking about a fresh air intake vent right there in the chimney, which could make Wannabee think this is actually done.

It looks like the chimney is insulated < double wall >

stainless steel that runs from the stove to the cap through the larger rectangular tile flue pipe. It will be sealed at the stove with a < asbestos-ish > gasket. .. another thing to inspect from time-to-time - if that big heavy steel plate around the stove isn't too hard to remove. John T.

I didn't look closely enough at the picture of the fireplace. Mostly sealed off so my suggestion to look inside makes little sense.

What is that 6x6" louver at the bottom left, outside the fireplace?

I loved the kick panel vents on my '73 suburban. Pull that knob out, and fresh air blasted in by your feet and cooled your whole body, with minimal wind noise.

Probably an air input for air that gets heated by the hot fireplace brick and exhausted to the room through the vent slots above the fireplace. All useless after the stove was added.

Several possible reasons.

If the chimney has rooms on each side, they would each have a fireplace feeding the other 2 of 3 flues.