When the hot air is rising up the conical structure up to the center hole on the roof, the negative air pressure created by such air movement will suck in fresh air from the other two holes down to the conical structure above the stove/fireplace. It is equivalent to hooking a vacuum hose to the center hole, then the vacuum will suck fresh air through the other two holes down to the stove/fireplace, then up the conical structure back up to the roof.
The hot air leaving the stove/fireplace up the conical structure to the center hole in the chimney has to be replaced by the fresh air coming down from the other two holes. The air movement from the two vent holes down to the stove/fireplace is facilitated by the negative air pressure created by the hot air rising up the conical structure to the center hole in the chimney.
A single cap covering all three holes will feed the hot exhaust leaving the center hole back into the other two holes. Don't forget that the other two holes are sucking air due to the negative air pressure created by the rising hot air up the conical structure above the stove/fireplace to the center hole. That will lead to incomplete combustion and create black smoke.
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micky
Absolutely. My '65 Catalina had that, and later I bought a '67 Pontiac Catalina and when I wrote the above, I didn't think it had the vents, because it had (broken) AC (even in a convertible ;-) but maybe it did. Eventually they decided if you had AC you didn't need vents. Yes I do.
My brother bought the '65 Catalina new after he graduated medical school, and when he went to Viet Nam 4 years later, he lent, then gave me the car. It had so much wrong with it, it was amazing.
The vents we're talking about didn't seem to work well so after a couple month I crawled in there and took of the covers, and by golly the knobs and wires were not connected to the vent doors! Easy thing for me to fix. The vents put out loads of air after that.
The drivers window did go up and down okay, but it rattled unless iirc it was all the way up. and when I opened the door, no one had tightened the screw that caused the front window channel to curve, to match the curve of the window. So the window was not in the channel and could not be put in the channel. Tightening the screw a few turns took care of that.
When the window was all the way up, it was over an inch from the top, letting it rain in. Someone told me the top was on wrong but I don't think an inch could account for that. I used layer after layer of GE black silicone sealant to fill in the space. Amateurish but I couldn't think of anything else. Don't really know how well that worked because the car was towed and destroyed not much later.
The steering wheel was IMO designed upside down, and it was certainly installed upside down, so just turning the wheel 90^ and letting it go back a little turned off the turn signals. It had hand grips molded into the plastic at 4 and 8, which I think looks upside down, is upside down and the reason the installer installed it backwards. I took off the steering wheel and drilled a matching hole in the center 180^ off the original hole, so I could mount it the way the installer had it but it didn't keep turning off the turn signals.
I think there were one or two more things, but the reason he gave me the car was that it stalled often or wouldn't start. One time in or near Times Square NY! My brother is a very good radiologist, but he can't fix things. (This is why afaik he didn't even notice the other problems.) He would have to call a service truck and often he had it taken to the dealer in Brooklyn where he lived. The dealer said it replaced the battery, the starter, and the alternator, all twice, and after that they told him the 2-year warranty had expired and they wouldn't do more, even though they never fixed it. When I got it, I measured the battery somehow and decided I needed a new one. I thought that might fix the problem above. I took it to Sears in Chicago where I lived, Sears was headquartered in Chicago and had lots of stores, with auto repair. He said, Do you want our free
792-point multi-check and I said, No, I just want a new battery. But it's free, he said. I don't like to argue and he seemed to want me to take it, so I said okay, And in less than 10 minutes he found the problem with the car. The battery cable at the starter motor connection was dirty. He took off the cable and cleaned it for no added charge, and I had no problems for weeks or months until I left the lights on and ran the battery down. Then even after a charge or a jump, it would not start. The first time, I crawled under the car and removed the cable, scraped it with a knife and put it back on, but sometime after that, I'd just reach my arm in and, with some effort, twist the cable (maybe I had not tightened it enough that I could do that, but that would be old news now). One time, I was dressed up and on my way to a date when the car stalled, just as I was about to get on a highway. Able to twist the cable without getting dirty in 15 seconds, and on my way. When my brother was out of the army and he invited me and I moved to Brooklyn 2 years later. Two years after that, the Pontiac dealer was out of business. My brother had bought a Ford convertible for his second car.
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If the center hole has its own pipe connecting the conical structure above the stove/fireplace, then fresh air can go down the other two holes to the stove/fireplace at the bottom without pipes.
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Bob F
The stove was obviously added after the chimneys were built, and the SS stovepipe for it would have been added when it was installed.
Because the fireplace appears to have been built to heat the room using warmed air circulating through pathways in the brick, the additional stacks would probably provide outside air to supply a roaring fire that warms up the fireplace bricks so they could heat the room for a good while.
Some friends of mine built a house with a russian fireplace which they loved. Here's the concept.
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Bob F
It seems like most of your comments assume the stove has anything to do with the original structure. I am sure that the stove and it's SS stovepipe were added at a later time, and it is likely that it does not use the original air inlets, because that stove looks just like mine, which uses inside air from the house to feed the fire, and it certainly does not need anywhere near the air supply those inlet pipes would provide. .
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Boris
Bob F snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:v54cm5$380jh$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Correct. What's not seen in the picture, about a foot to the right edge of the fireplace, is a toggle wall switch (just like a light switch). This switch turns on a fan behind the louver. If I turn on the switch and hold a paper napkin over the louver, it gets pulled up against the louver. If I hold the napkin over the vent slots above the fireplace, the napkin gets blown away. (The sucking force is much stronger than the blowing force.) I pulled the louver off, and could see there was a chamber behind it, but the steel sides of the stove obscured any further view. The chamber most likey sucked in cool room air over the heated brick and expelled it into the room. But like you say, it's useless now that the stove has been installed.
The stove works in a similar manner. Running on 120v, it has a fan that blows out heated air once it's internal thermostat tells it the fire is hot enough.
An expert chinmey mason came by today and spent an hour looking at the chimney, from the ground, and from pictures taken last year at the top. We also went under the house to inspect the base...looks good. He is going to set up scaffolding and replace the crown, taper it so rain runs off, grind and tuckpoint damage at top, place a new cap, and grind and tuckpoint other locations farther down towards the ground.
So, are the two stacks functional?
Until he gets on top, he won't know if the two stacks are functional. But even then, without having the original build plans, it's hard to tell. If not functional, he would seal. If functional, he would cap.
I just wonder where all the rain and snow has been going. Capping would be on the safe side.
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Boris
Bob F snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:v54vjv$3cab2$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
That is very cool!
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Bob F
My friends claimed it was very warm! A quick very hot fire once or twice a day.
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micky
So when you said above that "My guess is that the other two holes have no pipes going down to the fireplace", did you mean there are no pipes but the flues themselves went down to the fireplace??? That was confusing, because why would it matter if there were pipes in the flues or just plain flues? Anyhow, that why I asked how they could function as intake vents.
Since then, I've looked more closely at the picture of the stove and the surrounding area of the fireplace seems sealed off. Can't put one's head in there.
First, i still believe the other two holes are just for decoration, so that's why I like a single hood.
But if one thinks that they go down to the fireplace, then Even without a single hood you would have the problem you describe, of sucking in exhaust gas. For example at
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poster says and 3 others agree: "The two, exhaust and intake, need to be 6 feet apart minimum so you dont just suck in the old air you spat out. Would need some elbows to go 3 feet in each direction once it left the chimney." This is for HRV where the fresh air is to be used as fresh air, not for burning, but it still seems relevant. One person posted that he did it this way but only because a horizontal input duct would be right across from his neighbor's stove and diesel exhaust.
One says that in Michigan the law is 10 feet.
Does anyone here actually know of a case where a chimney flue was used for intake air for a fire? I think the same height difference between the top of the chimney and the fire, that makes a tall chimney draw well, would inhibit a flue's use for fresh air. I've googled with whatever words I can think of, and the url above was the closest I could find. So why that one guy did it while remodeling, I don't believe anyone builds a fireplace that way.
Plus of course that the stove has its own air intake opening.
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micky wrote on 6/22/2024 12:30 PM:
The exhaust comes up to the center hole via some sort of ducting. That means there is already a pathway to go up (inside the duct), and a pathway to go down (the empty space between the duct and the chimney wall). There is no need to connect extra pipes to the other two holes for the fresh air to go down to the fireplace. There must be some kind of hood inside the fireplace immediately above the burning logs to catch the exhaust and a pipe to guide the exhaust up to the center hole at the top of the chimney.
There is a glass door. One must open the glass door to put firewood in. You definitely can stick your head into the opening. If you don't want to make your face and hair dirty, then stick you cellphone camera in to take a video.
The door to the fireplace looks airtight. The firewood will extinguish itself without the fresh air coming down from the other two holes at the top of the chimney.
Hot air rises. Naturally the exhaust will rise and won't drift horizontally to enter the two other holes, unless you deliberately put a single hood to force the exhaust to go sideways.
The glass door looks airtight. There is no air intake opening down there. You must be seeing things.
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micky
Chimneys were made for, I think, thousands of years without chimney caps, and many are still made that way. Our two houses didnt' have caps.
Where does the rain and snow go if there is no cap? I think it's to the NRSR, the National Rain and Snow Reserve, where the US government saves extra rain and snow in case of a national emergency.
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hubops
Some discussion about the stove - the maker's website has the Manuals for older models - much useful info - - this one - with the lovely brass features - looks a lot like the Revere -
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John T.
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Bob F
The stovepipe you see exiting the chimney is a continuous pipe down to the circular outlet from the top of the stove. The air into the stove is drawn into the stove from the inside air. A blower on the bottom of the stove blows air under, beside, and back over the top of the stove into the house to heat the house.
The control knob at the bottom center of the stove controls how much house air goes into the stove to feed the fire. The knob above the stove controls the damper to control the path of the air out of the stove, either directly out the top back of the firebox when open for starting, or forward under fire bricks, then back under the metal top of the stove for the most heat transfer when hot.
You are going to have to stick your head all the way to the DIRTY back 3 inches of the stove to maybe get a tiny look past the damper and up the stovepipe that goes all the way up the chimney. Have fun with that.
Or, you can disassemble and remove the firebricks at the top of the stove and get a slightly better glimpse of the chimney pipe.
Don't bother.
Newer fireplaces, well designed older ones, and wood stoves are more likely to have outside air connections so they don't suck as much heated air out of the house.
Wrong. You are ignoring things. The air to the fire enters under the firebox, via piping that directs it for the best combustion, controlled by the knob in the center bottom. Fans at the bottom also blow air under and around the stove and back into the room at the top and sides of the stove.
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Boris
snipped-for-privacy@ccanoemail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
You found the manual for the stove that was installed, the Revere. I've never known the model name, as the prior owner left no documentation, and there's no badge on the stove. I did know that Lopi was the manufacturer, so I went to their website, looking for a manual, not knowing the model, let alone if it was discontinued.
I went to
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owner resources>manuals>
current/discontinued. There were so many models that I just found the first one that showed controls and inner workings similar to what I had. I ended up downloading the Cape Code Flush Insert model.
I commend and thank you for taking the time to go through the list of manuals and finding the Revere, which is the model I have. I downloaded it. (Other that being a flush model with different installation instructions, the manual is the same as the Cape Cod model.)
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Boris wrote on 6/22/2024 8:19 PM:
Congratulations!!!
I understand that some manufacturers sell exactly the same product under different brand names.
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The OP said it was originally a fireplace at that spot. A regular fireplace would be expelling too much warm air from the house through the chimney and sucking too much cold air into the house through the house door gaps. I believe the original fireplace had a hood and a pipe to vent the exhaust up to the center hole in the chimney, and fresh air would come down from the two other holes to the side of the pile of burning logs to aid combustion. Of course there would be an airtight glass door at the front of the fireplace for this scheme to work.
Maybe the other two holes are for that purpose.
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Bob F
I would not be surprised. I suspect the original fireplace may have been something like the russian fireplace I mentioned earlier.
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cshenk
(note, this was posted before any pictures or age of house)
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Danart
1) endoscope. You have endoscope cameras you could plug in a phone. Many with lights, and you could trace where it actually leads to.
2) exhaust. All houses need a system for air-to-leave. My professor corrected me when I show him a house from the SIMS. So logically those two must help keep the house from being muddled over time.
3) as somebody mentioned the mechanism of air-flow. That would make perfect sense as well.
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