The industry terminology we use, to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing.
Designed to keep rain, animals, and other debris out of your flue, there are multiple types of caps available for your flue or chimney (see our blog post on maintaining your chimney crown for more information on caps for terra cotta flues and masonry chimneys). If you have a factory-built appliance with its own chimney,…
Wooden Sun only sells and installs fully-vented gas logs (an operational chimney is required), but many people have freestanding gas logs in what are called “unvented fireboxes”. These “fireplaces” are no more than metal boxes set into the wall, and have no chimney that could be used for an insert or replacement logs. This doesn’t…
A Direct Vent Appliance is a completely sealed propane or natural gas burning heating or decorative appliance, with a glass front. Combustion air comes from the outside of your house, and the flue gases vent to the exterior of your house through a separate pipe. These differ from freestanding Gas Logs, which sit in your…
A high efficiency wood-burning fireplace functions exactly like a stove except that it can go into framing. They are clean-burning, meet EPA standards for emissions, and are efficient as well. These fireplaces can be equipped with gravity or forced air kits to distribute heat to other rooms of the house. These fireplaces are nearly as efficient as wood stoves…
A wood or pellet insert functions just like a stove, but is designed to slide into your existing fireplace and connect directly to a liner, with no stovepipe required. It usually has some sort of surround faceplate to block off the remaining fireplace opening.
A wood or pellet stove is freestanding, burns solid fuel, and can vent out the top or the back. A top-vented stove is generally installed with either its own Class A chimney or into a masonry/Class A thimble, while a rear-vented stove is often installed in front of an existing open fireplace and connected to…
A “Class A” thimble is also a 6 or 8 inch diameter hole in the wall, but projects several inches into the room, and has black metal trim and a smooth metal interior. It usually has a crimped metal flange for fitting the metal stovepipe. A Class A thimble is used in situations where the wall doesn’t…
A masonry thimble is a round, terracotta cylinder extending through the chimney wall into the flue. The hole is usually 6 or 8 inches in diameter and is designed to accept stove pipe.
A factory built fireplace (can be wood or gas) is constructed of metal, and is designed to go into framing, with its own dedicated metal chimney. Sometimes they are called “zero clearance” fireplaces but this is something of a misnomer, as no fireplace is truly zero clearance.
A masonry fireplace is what most people think of when they picture a fireplace. Constructed on a solid concrete foundation, they are massive towers of brick, stucco or stone usually seen rising up an exterior wall of a house. Some factory-built fireplaces are constructed to look like masonry fireplaces. The key difference is that a masonry fireplace…
