Refractory panels and prefab fireplace parts replaced in Keene's Pointe

Finding the rating plate on your fireplace

Every listed factory-built fireplace carries a rating plate with the maker, the model and the serial number. One maker's manual places it on the smoke shelf, just inside the top of the opening, and the manual for your model shows where yours sits.

We find and read that plate before discussing any part. With the fireplace cold, you can often spot it yourself with a flashlight, and writing down the model and serial number before you call speeds up the parts search.

• Maker's name
• Model name or number
• Serial number
• Listing information

The chimney is part of the fireplace's listing

A factory-built fireplace is tested with a specific chimney. Section R1005.4 says chimneys for use with factory-built fireplaces shall comply with UL 127, the same standard as the fireplace, and R1005.1 has factory-built chimneys listed and labeled, then installed and finished at the top as their maker directs.

That makes the metal chimney a matched part of the system. Repairs to pipe sections, supports or the top of the chimney use the components the fireplace's manual names.

Inside a factory-built chimney pipe

In one maker's system, each chimney section is a galvanized outer pipe around a stainless steel inner flue pipe, with a wire spacer holding the two apart. The sections snap-lock together as the chimney goes up, inner pipe first.

The space between the walls is part of the design. Dents that pinch that space, separated joints and rust on the outer pipe all go on our repair list with the section they affect.

• Galvanized outer pipe
• Stainless steel inner flue
• Wire spacer between the walls
• Snap-lock joints

Firestop spacers at every floor and ceiling

Wherever the chimney passes through a floor or ceiling, one maker's system uses a firestop spacer that holds the required clearance between the pipe and the framing and separates one floor space from the next or from the attic.

A missing, bent or displaced firestop leaves framing closer to the pipe than the listing allows. We check firestops wherever access allows and replace damaged ones with the maker's part.

• A firestop at every floor or ceiling the pipe crosses
• Clearance to framing held
• Damaged firestops replaced with the maker's part