Right, the heat is on, so to speak, to get a log-burner in place before winter comes, so I thought I should start investigating what I need to do. I removed the old inset fireplace to have a look what was behind it today and, after scraping off the various bird-bits, found this.....
So my first questions are....
1) What is all that loose material at the bottom - It seems like a sort of polystyrene. Is it just insulation between the fire back and the outside world so as not to waste heat, or does it have a more safety related purpose. I didn't replace it when I put the fire back but can if I need to. Would it be OK to have 2 or 3 more fires without it, or should I just not light up.
2) Most of the bricks within the fireplace seem to be loose. If I take them out is the chimney going to become a big empty square box (which I would like) or are some of these bits important.
At the top of the fireplace, about 70cm up from the hearth top, it goes up into this.....
and if I look up it it looks like this.....
So....
3) Is this what they call a liner, or a flue ? Is there any difference that I need to know about in this context ?
4) It seems to be about 7.5" in diameter, whereas most stoves seem to have a flue of about 5" or 6". Do I need some sort of adapter or could I, say, run the 6" pipe up inside the 7.5" pipe for, say, a couple of foot and stick some insulation in the void between the two ? Or is that just being silly ?
Finally, I read somewhere that you should allow a heat output of about 1kW for every 14 cubic metres. My room is about 20' x 11' x 10' so I was going to aim at around 5-6 kW-ish. However, some of the ones I have seen on eBay say things like '6kW - ideal for a small room' and my room isn't that small. Does anyone have a feel for how good that 14 cubic metre figure is ?
Think thats it for the moment and all help much appreciated. Have I missed anything else obvious ?