Chimney Balloon fireplace damper

Fireplace damper and glass doors vs Chimney Balloon

Chimney Balloon USA had a certified energy rater test to see what sealed a home tighter... a metal damper, fireplace glass doors, or a Chimney Balloon.

Who: A third party Focus on Energy certified energy rater (Mark Furst with Grading Spaces Inc) did a blower door testing sequence on a ranch home of 1200 square ft. Mark is certified with Focus on Energy and also with Resnet.

What: The test home was a 1200 square foot ranch style home with a basement. It had one zero clearance fireplace with a 9" flue and a flapper style metal damper. The fireplace also had a set of tempered glass bifold doors. The home had R-50 cellulose insulation in the attic, R19 fiberglass insulation in the walls. Eight R2 windows and three steel and solid wood exterior doors.

When: The test was preformed in Wisconsin in August of 2008.

Why: To see if the Chimney Balloon was better at stopping cold air infiltration than fireplace glass doors or metal chimney dampers. The test was run on a very small zero clearance fireplace with the minimum size chimney vent of 9" tube. This chimney and damper is the smallest flue and damper possible for a conventional fireplace. Therefore the savings represent the lowest levels of energy savings you can expect.

According to the results the Chimney Balloon helped the home save 27% more heat than if the damper was open and the glass doors were open.

The Chimney Balloon saved 15% more heat than the metal damper alone.

The Chimney Balloon saved 6% more heat than the glass doors alone, and even worked better than the damper and glass doors combined.

Here is a link to the complete report from the energy rater after he conducted the testing.
http://www.chimneyballoon.us/f/GradingSpaceschimneyballoonreport.pdf

Chimney Balloon dampers on GreenBuildingElements.com

We had a published article on GreenBuildingElements.com on the inefficiencies of open fireplace use and how home heat can be saved with a Chimney Balloon fireplace damper.

The article will look familiar since we had also posted it on our blog a few weeks ago. Here is a link to the complete article: http://greenbuildingelements.com/2008/09/22/how-to-stop-your-fireplace-from-being-an-energy-eater/

Wood Burning Fireplaces Steal Heat From Your Home

On a cold winter eve who of us is not tempted to go to the living room and stoke up a fire in the fireplace and read a book in front of the fire? You may be thinking “I am doing myself a favor by supplementing the furnace with additional heat”, but in fact you are making your house colder and could be contributing significantly to pollution depending upon how you burn.

The wood burning fireplace is a loosing proposition

The air action that a wood burning fireplace initiates in our home is wasteful. The moment the damper is opened heated air begins pouring out of the top of the chimney. As the fire in the hearth accelerates, the combustion process grabs already heated air from your home and burns the oxygen and combustible gasses in it. The heat that is created in this combustion quickly rises and grabs more heated inside air and tosses it up the chimney. You can restrict the amount of inside air that the fireplace has access to by installing glass doors, but this will also severely limit the amount of radiant heat that fireplace can cast forward into your living space. This radiant heat is the heat you feel on your skin in front of the fireplace, and is the only usable heat that the fireplace will produce since the combustion heat is pouring out the top of the chimney. In the meantime the home is drawing in cold outside air from other places (i.e. windows, light sockets, doors, etc) to replace the air that is escaping the home through the chimney. This is referred to as the “stack effect”.

Loosing heat even while dormant

Even while the wood fireplace is not being used, the traditional metal dampers tend to leak air since they warp and degrade rapidly in the extreme heat and corrosive soot environment. The removable and reusable Chimney Balloon fireplace chimney damper available in assorted sizes inflates into place in the flue and seals it off efficiently to stop heat loss and the cold draft.

The good, the bad, and the pollution

If you burn a fast hot fire this creates very little smoke and pollution, and it can give you a noticeable amount of radiant heat gain in the room the fireplace it is in. However it is using volume amounts of your already heated inside air for it combustion which exceeds your heat gain ratio. A slower fire is even worse since you are still loosing heated air out the chimney and getting very little radiant heat in return. This black type of fireplace smoke is a terrible pollutant and contributes to respiratory irritant for people with asthma and allergies.

Wood burning fireplaces are wonderful nostalgic centerpieces for many American homes. But a homeowner should be aware of the issues associated with fireplace use.

Sources:

US Department of Energy

WoodHeat.org

GreenBuildingElements.com

Spalling fireplace chimney bricks fell into my chimney!

Q: Jason, I purchased a chimney balloon last July. It got smashed by a falling brick that fell inside our fireplace chimney down to the fire box (a 2 story fall), so I need to purchase another one. It worked great until last night when a shower of brick, mortar, feathers, and leaves fell into our bedroom fireplace- yuck! Can you tell me what size I purchased last time? - CS

Dear CS, Last time you purchased a 12x12 Chimney Balloon. You may want to have the structural integrity of your chimney looked at if the spalling bricks are falling down inside your chimney. If one brick falls then there could be more on the verge of falling. A good chimney sweep can tell you what your looking at for issues with this fireplace chimney. You don't want to have a chimney that is in the habit of throwing bricks off on the inside or outside. Worst possible case scenario would be a chimney collapse, so this is nothing to mess with. I would have it checked out soon. - Jason