Tugboat Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 53 minutes ago, vike daddy said: i'm not so sure there, Detective Tuggy... the OP states from the first post: "My 1940’s house has a basement fireplace, connected to a main floor fireplace. The main floor was converted to natural gas at some point, so the basement is now sealed off (or maybe was originally never connected to the chimney?)." now, possibly he just means his basement has a brick chimney coming down to the floor footings, but i took it to mean he has a basement fireplace, one that has an opening and can burn firewood. EDIT: @Heimdallr also writes: "but I can't tell if the two fireplaces had separate exhausts or not because the basement one is sealed off now." sort of sounds like the house has two fireplaces, or at least was originally built with two. Who knows really. It'd just be extremely bizarre to me, to put chimney cleanout chutes inside an actual functioning fireplace in the basement. Bizarre, even for 1940s design. Which is what makes me pretty confident that basement "fireplace" was never actually a fireplace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 4 minutes ago, Tugboat said: Who knows really. It'd just be extremely bizarre to me, to put chimney cleanout chutes inside an actual functioning fireplace in the basement. Bizarre, even for 1940s design. Which is what makes me pretty confident that basement "fireplace" was never actually a fireplace. eh. the basement fireplace could have been designed in a utility manner for supplemental heat or even to be heating water. and the cleanouts from above could be in an ugly, obvious location because no one cared what they look like. obviously, the two of us need to travel to this house and check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 6 minutes ago, vike daddy said: eh. the basement fireplace could have been designed in a utility manner for supplemental heat or even to be heating water. and the cleanouts from above could be in an ugly, obvious location because no one cared what they look like. obviously, the two of us need to travel to this house and check it out. I just can't imagine that they'd put them in the locations in the single image posted, and expect the servants to be crawling around inside an actual fireplace to clean out the ash from above. That's a step too far! Servants are people too!!! But yeah. Obviously someone's going to have to go inspect. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 2 minutes ago, Tugboat said: I just can't imagine that they'd put them in the locations in the single image posted, and expect the servants to be crawling around inside an actual fireplace to clean out the ash from above. hold on, son... he said the basement fireplace [opening] is sealed off. so if the cleanout doors are still accessible, then they're not inside the fireplace itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 5 minutes ago, vike daddy said: hold on, son... he said the basement fireplace [opening] is sealed off. so if the cleanout doors are still accessible, then they're not inside the fireplace itself. I just took that to mean, it's sealed off or "capped" in that it's basically a sealed alcove that doesn't go anywhere. Other than wherever those former cleanout chutes go (only squirrels truly know). I can't imagine he was talking about an entirely separate fireplace in the basement? Maybe i'm mistaken. But that looks distinctly like a fireplace footprint, for the main floor fireplace above. Possible it was offset enough to have a separate flue at some point, but that'd still put the cleanout doors...inside the fireplace. Which doesn't make any sense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 20 minutes ago, Tugboat said: Which doesn't make any sense. again, we need to investigate. road trip! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heimdallr Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 This is what the basement fireplace looks like. From my previous picture you can see where the chimney exhaust should be, it is capped off with cement. Not sure if it was originally like that or if it was capped when the upstairs was converted to gas. It looks like it was a fully functional fireplace, but maybe it was just an area to collect ash and when the basement was finished they added the mantle to make it look better. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 5 hours ago, Heimdallr said: It looks like it was a fully functional fireplace, but maybe it was just an area to collect ash and when the basement was finished they added the mantle to make it look better. nah, it was fully functional at the time of being built, it had to be. an ash collection area would never be open, it would always a closed off void, like what you have with the metal doors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 20 hours ago, Heimdallr said: This is what the basement fireplace looks like. From my previous picture you can see where the chimney exhaust should be, it is capped off with cement. Not sure if it was originally like that or if it was capped when the upstairs was converted to gas. It looks like it was a fully functional fireplace, but maybe it was just an area to collect ash and when the basement was finished they added the mantle to make it look better. Huh. Well that's a strange one. It does look like it was indeed a functioning fireplace. But why they'd put the cleanout doors inside there...just seems super inconvenient. But i guess that was someone else's problem. lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tugboat Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 15 hours ago, vike daddy said: nah, it was fully functional at the time of being built, it had to be. an ash collection area would never be open, it would always a closed off void, like what you have with the metal doors. I mean...the cleanout doors are inside of that fireplace though. Which is the weird thing to me. I guess they just wanted a fireplace down there and didn't care if it was inconvenient. Crawling around in a functional fireplace to clean out all the squirrels and ash from above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 4 minutes ago, Tugboat said: I mean...the cleanout doors are inside of that fireplace though. Which is the weird thing to me. I guess they just wanted a fireplace down there and didn't care if it was inconvenient. Crawling around in a functional fireplace to clean out all the squirrels and ash from above. i'd venture the guess that since the original masons made a functional fireplace in the basement (I TOLD YOU SO!) then cleanout doors in any other spot would be in the finished part of the room. awkward, yes, but what other choice would they have had? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heimdallr Posted February 14 Share Posted February 14 I do want to get in there and really clean out the ash chutes, just in case another squirrel gets in there, but there is a LOT of debris and it gets everywhere. Then I could just put in glue traps so if anything falls in there it is easy to catch and remove. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 6 hours ago, Heimdallr said: I do want to get in there and really clean out the ash chutes, just in case another squirrel gets in there, but there is a LOT of debris and it gets everywhere. you could hire a chimney cleaning service to do it, i doubt it would cost too much. they'll have tarps, and special vacs that can suck it all out. would that be worth... say... $200 to you, maybe less? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heimdallr Posted February 15 Share Posted February 15 12 hours ago, vike daddy said: you could hire a chimney cleaning service to do it, i doubt it would cost too much. they'll have tarps, and special vacs that can suck it all out. would that be worth... say... $200 to you, maybe less? absolutely! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vike daddy Posted February 16 Share Posted February 16 13 hours ago, Heimdallr said: absolutely! make the call. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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