Old Fisher fireplace insert... is it safe? (hardwood, my fireplace, furnace)

[lexrb]

i recently saw an old fisher fireplace insert. it weighs 400lbs. wanting to know if these older inserts are safe to use, and can they be fix to be safe. was thinking of putting one in an existing fireplace. thanks

[Coldjensens]

Define safe. It could mean anything from "completely without any risk to use" to "anyone who ever used one has died a horrible and painful death"

Neither extreme applies.


The most important thing is to make certain that the vent pipe is sealed and venting properly. Also, do not put paper or other flammable materials agaisnt it, do nto press your face to the side or front while it is burning, do nto burn plastics, magazines trash, explosives, pine, toothpaste, . . . anything but coal or hardwood. Do not place young children on top of the insert while it is hot.

Most things are safe if used correctly. The things that you hear about being unsafe are usually declared unsafe because people figoure out a way to do somethign really stupid with them.

For example, is lead paint unsafe? Yes, if you eat it.

Are candles unsafe? Yes if you sleep with them lit, place them in stupid places, drop them ont he floor, stick your hair inthe flame, etc.

It all depends on you. However safety starts with proper installation.

[burr]

I figure you may be looking for a more wood stove related answer, not a philosophical breakdown of mankind vs the elements.

400 lbs tells a lot; it is substantially built, and Fisher is a widely known and trusted namebrand.

If it is an old one (20yo), it is obsolete by epa standards. newer epa stoves have technology that burns cleaner, with less wood consumption, and required in certain areas (west coast).

Although not up to newer emission standards, if installed correctly, and structurally sound, it will provide plenty heat and comfort. I am presently re-building a pre-epa Buckstove for use in my fireplace.

If purchased, also get a carbon monoxide detector, burn seasoned wood (oak is best imo), and check out the newer chimney liners.

...and get ready to do some work, accumulating woodpiles are a second heatsource !

[Coldjensens]

Originally Posted by burr

I figure you may be looking for a more wood stove related answer, not a philosophical breakdown of mankind vs the elements.

400 lbs tells a lot; it is substantially built, and Fisher is a widely known and trusted namebrand.

If it is an old one (20yo), it is obsolete by epa standards. newer epa stoves have technology that burns cleaner, with less wood consumption, and required in certain areas (west coast).

Although not up to newer emission standards, if installed correctly, and structurally sound, it will provide plenty heat and comfort. I am presently re-building a pre-epa Buckstove for use in my fireplace.

If purchased, also get a carbon monoxide detector, burn seasoned wood (oak is best imo), and check out the newer chimney liners.

...and get ready to do some work, accumulating woodpiles are a second heatsource !

Do you know of a carbon monoxide dectector that actually works? We supplement our heat using 170 year old fireplaces and I strongly desiered a good CO2 dectector. A bought one and tested it by holding it in the smoke from the fire and it did nto alarm. THen I held it in the exhaust from my car - no alarm. I took it back and got another one. Same problem. I went back to the store and tried a different model. Same problem. I retruned that one and bought one of every brand and model that they had (most were Kidde brand). All of them had the same problem. They would not go off even when held right in the smoke of a fire or exhaust of the car.

Finally I did find an old one at a rummage sale that will alarm. It also has a read out that tells you the CO2 levels. The problem with that one is that it operates only on 120 v.a.c. It does not have batteries. Besides that it is very old. I think that it may actually be a piece of lab equipment rather than a household co2 detector, but I am not sure.

Although that one will alarm from smoke, it would not alarm when I truned on the gas stove without lighting it. I thought that they were supposed to go off if natural gas was leaking. Perhaps not. Is there a natural gas detector? We have a very old stove with no pilot. evnetually I will have the gas works replaced but no one will do it for free, so until we have some money, we cannot have it done.

If you know of one of those things that actually works, please let me know the brand and model. I really want to have several of them in our house, but we have none since I could find none that actually work.

[thecoalman]

It's a CO detector or carbon monoxide. CO2 is carbon dioxide.

CO is created when you burn things, where it gets bad is if you have incorrect or partial combustion from say a malfunctioning gas or oil furnace so it's not just solid fuel appliances this applies too. CO poising happens at higher percentage from solid fuel appliances because of user error, for example with coal 99% of the people that die from this die because of blocked chimney. Coal produces fly ash and you'll need to clean this out periodically, if you don't it will eventually block the flue.

The reason people never know it is because CO is odorless, tasteless and invisible. It's specific gravity is almost the exact same as "air" so it can easily travel along the normal air currents in a house. It can kill fast at higher concentrations or slowly at lower concentrations because it bonds with your hemoglobin depriving your body of oxygen. The longer you are exposed the worse it becomes. Even getting out of the house doesn't mean your out of the woods if you have breathed enough of it and you could live right next to the hospital and still die even if they knew what was wrong.

It's nothing to mess with, every house should have a CO2 detector unless they are running nothing but electric.

As far as why it didn't go off CO detectors have a threshold which is usually set at point that is considered by some as too high. The reason is because they want to prevent false alarms. Me and few friends used to party at this one house that apparently didn't get much air circulation in the winter. Between the old coal stove, 20 people smoking and whatever else that damn thing would inevitably go off. In your case I'd surmise it simply didn't reach that threshold. Some of them will even give you read out of the concentration. They work, use them.

[Coldjensens]

How can it not reach the threshold when they are held i the exhaust of a runing car, or in the smoke from a fire? If the threshold is that high it will serve no purpose but to annoy me in my last seconds as I fall to the floor dead. I hoped that it would detect any smoke that is leaking from the chiminey or collecting in the event of insufficient draft. The one that does work, gives a reading. But that one does nto run on batteries. THus, if the power goes out, it does not function.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

How can it not reach the threshold when they are held i the exhaust of a runing car, or in the smoke from a fire? If the threshold is that high it will serve no purpose but to annoy me in my last seconds as I fall to the floor dead. I hoped that it would detect any smoke that is leaking from the chiminey or collecting in the event of insufficient draft. The one that does work, gives a reading. But that one does nto run on batteries. THus, if the power goes out, it does not function.

The CO tailpipe output of modern cars with exhaust emission controls, catalytic converters, closed-loop Fuel Injection systems ... is very low, and below the triggering threshold of an alarm.

Even an open wood fire with lots of supplied air burns pretty well, with almost no CO output. The "visible" smoke isn't CO, it's particulates and other combustion products ... like H2O (water vapor).

The reason a home environment with a CO source can build up so much CO as to be hazardous is because you're in a "sealed" environment ... where there's not much make-up air and the CO produced by the combustion source builds up in the place. It takes a poorly fired furnace or woodstove or appliance to create a lot of CO, too. We have several unvented propane fired wall space heaters (with oxygen depletion sensors to shut them down) used in a cabin, and excessive CO has never been a problem with these units. Consider, too, that you don't hear about folks building up excessive CO in a house from their natural gas or propane fueled cookstove, which can be run for hours every day ... because these appliances typically have a well oxygenated burner with a "blue flame".

While your old fireplace insert is dated compared to the latest "clean-burning" technology ... in good condition, they were reasonably efficient heaters and a pleasure to use. We use some 30-40 year old Waterford stoves in our house, and they're similar in weight and quality of cast iron in them, and our main back-up heat source is a 1998 production Waterford Stanley wood cookstove ... unchanged from those built 75 years earlier. It qualified for FED emissions when it was built, it's clean burning, efficient, and a pleasure to cook on and be around in the winter months. Even though a lot of the old woodstoves weren't designed or built with FED emissions standards in mind, the designers were pretty good about crafting an efficient product, which went hand-in-hand with cleaner burning standards of later years.