Fireplace Insulation
Here is the initial Fireplace shot from our walk through……
So at first we just wanted to see what we were getting into, so we poked a little hole……
Then a bigger hole…..
And then I put my camera through that hole and it took this photo and I almost lost it!
No Insulation.
There is no insulation in there! And so the whole wall had to come down…..
So I made some phone calls and found out there is a fire resistant insulation. I had to call a lot of stores around town but I found it at a local Parr Lumber.
Since I was there – I also bought a fire resistant air barrier.
………… and down goes the fireplace wall
Taking down the fireplace wall included taking down this little machine looking item. Our heating contractor called it a Heaterator? It was designed to take warm air from the fireplace and re-distribute it from the top of the fireplace to add heat to the room. It was such an old and inefficient system that it was better to just take the whole thing down.
Here is a photo of the machine.
this is an image of the place where the air came back out into the room.
In order to make sure that no air came from this area – I sealed these holes first, with the air barrier and spray foam:
Then I went to work insulating the fireplace area.
I used a Sharpie to mark the exact size of the framing bays so the insulation was a solid fit against the wall and didn’t require any glue or netting to keep it up. With the lack of space for arms/body parts to access this space, this was the best way i could think to do it; and it worked pretty well.
then i used a box cutter to cut the insulation to size.
Exact fit!
This is what the whole area looked like when I was done with it. I also have insulation behind this insulation as I showed earlier.
Then in order to keep everything in place and create a better air barrier I used a staple gun to cover the inslation with the air barrier:
I had to leave that one area open for electrical wiring for the TV that will go into this space.
Now that the area has insulation and an air barrier, we can proceed.


























