Comments on: How to Install a Fireplace Insert

on 7/17/2008 I see the listing under "Difficulty" that this installation is "moderately easy. I want the writer of these isntructions to come demonstrate for me how moderately easy IT IS, since after 18 years of installing literally hundreds of inserts I've YET to find the piece of cake, as it were, job/installation the writer suggests it is. I want to see him/her crawl inside a fireplace, literally, to do the cutting and chiseling encessary to take out the damper, damper frame, firebrick at the back and a portion of the concrete somoke shelf to permit access of the liner into the F.P.; oh, and I want so also see him/her just slide that liner straight down the chimney and stub it into the insert: I'll even pay to watch!!

on 7/17/2008 These seven steps are so over simplified it boggles the mind. Whoever wrote this has either never installed an insert, or at the best, read the same foolish instructions given in a manufacturer's instruction booklet. The first difficulty, actually a trap, if you will, that the average person is confronted with in these instructions is step no. 2. the suggestion that all one needs to do is drop a chimney(flue) liner down the chimney after removing the damper will find the homeowner discovering two things; 1. most dampers are only 4.5 to 5 inches wide, so someone demonstrate for me how one passes a 6 inch, common size liner required for most newer inserts, through the damper frame area; this is the steel hood, so to speak, which the mason would have installed on top of the firebox as he built the fireplace, that is if it's a masonry fireplace. If it's a prefabricated fireplace, commonly r

on 1/5/2008 PLEASE:
I WANT just a contractor-grade metal firebox for a wood-burning fireplace. One that can be vented with a metal chimney, then surrounded with just carpentry, both exterior and interior.

I just want the WORKING PARTS.

(I know these exist because I've had house in which
one was built, when the house was built.)

What I do NOT want:
All the fancy front designs.

symnseddina@yahoo.com