4 Stages of a Fire

In response to many requests from my last post, the purpose of this post is to discuss the 4 different stages of wood burning. We at Acucraft have adopted these standards and this post will differ from the chemical breakdown of wood.

These stages are very important to understand when using an efficient wood burning fireplace or stove to maximize the BTU's per pound of wood. Many people new to efficient fireplaces stay in the creosote stage with wet wood, focus on getting your fire to be in stage 3.

Stage 1 - Start Up Stage
- The start up stage involves warming your fireplace flue and creating draw to begin pulling in the combustion air. We recommend starting with dry kindling and a fire starter, do not use newspaper. Many chimney sweeps will say the majority of creosote build up is caused by newspaper along with a cold flue.

 "Simple Wood Moisture Test" which anyone can do: 
"Add one large piece of wood to the top of an established fire. If it starts to burn on three sides within one minute, it is dry and seasoned and right for burning, If it turns black and starts to burn in about three minutes or more, it is damp. If it turns black and does not start burning until five minutes or more, it is green and wet. If it hisses at any time, the wood is soaked and will not burn until the excess moisture is boiled away."

Stage 2 - Creosote Stage
- Always start with dry seasoned wood, preferably under 20% moisture content. Add the dry split wood above the burning kindling fire. Always ensure there is proper flow for the smoke and heat to exit up the flue. The goal is to get out of this stage, the wood temperature will rise as it begins to burn. The moisture will be evaporating from the wood as it reaches 212 F and all the moisture will be out of the wood between 400 and 414 F. During this stage the wood will be hissing and bubbling on the ends. Keep the damper and combustion controls wide open during this stage, until you see the wood cleanly burning with out grey smoke etc..

Stage 3 - Heating Stage
- Once the wood has burned out the moisture and you have the combustion control dialed in, the flames will take on a slow moving orange flame. Maintain this type of burn for maximum heat and minimal creosote build up on your glass and flue. This stage can be maintained for 6-10 hours between loads of new wood, depending on your wood and your fireplace.

Perfect Looking Flame

"Simple Wood Moisture Test" which anyone can do: 
"Add one large piece of wood to the top of an established fire. If it starts to burn on three sides within one minute, it is dry and seasoned and right for burning, If it turns black and starts to burn in about three minutes or more, it is damp. If it turns black and does not start burning until five minutes or more, it is green and wet. If it hisses at any time, the wood is soaked and will not burn until the excess moisture is boiled away."

Stage 4 - Die Down
- If you are going to let your fire go out in your fireplace, open the damper. During this stage, your flue will be getting colder at the top and when the cold meets with slow moving smoke creosote can occur. By opening your damper during this stage you are able to keep the flue warmer until the fire goes out.

As always, if you have any questions or would like to requests topics for the next blog post, please email them to chris@acucraft.com

Happy Burning.

What is the difference between a fireplace and an insert?

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between a fireplace and an insert. The actual definitions vary by region, I will try to explain the main differences between the two categories.


Category I - Fireplaces

A fireplace is a self operating system that is able to burn fuel. A fireplace will have its own chimney flue system. There are two main types of fireplaces:

1. Factory built fireplace - Acucraft manufactures factory built fireplaces that are pre - engineered systems where the chimney system and combustion air inlets along with controls for both are incorporated. The factory built fireplace is set in the home and built around with framing and stone.

The fireplace on the right is a factory built fireplace by Acucraft and the fireplace on the left is the same fireplace with our insulated panel system.

The fireplace installed above  is the completed factory built fireplace. This fireplace has the rustic arched doors with grids.

2. Open hearth fireplace - Open hearth fireplaces are typically built on site by a mason. The firebox is lined with real firebrick. Open Hearth Fireplaces provide alot of ambiance, however, the efficiency is appx -35%. The average open hearth uses very little outside air combustion and appx 300 cubic feet of air per minute is pulled from your home and goes up the chimney flue. Please note: all Acucraft wood burning fireplaces can be operated as an open hearth by simply removing the doors or burning with the doors open, providing your home has adequate make up air.

Open Hearth Fireplace - They will provide some heat for the area around the fireplace, however they are very inefficient and alot of the heated air in your home will go up the flue. Turn up the furnace prior to starting a fire.

Category II - Inserts

Inserts are units that are designed to fit inside an existing fireplace. They are most popular inside the open hearth fireplace because they can help the system burn more efficiently. Custom inserts are very expensive and difficult to design. Many Inserts require a lot of steel around the insert, called flashing, to close off the area between the little insert and the fireplace opening.


Custom Wood Burning Insert

Please note that Acucraft does not design or manufacture fireplace inserts.

We hope this post helped explain the difference between a fireplace and an insert. As always, if you have any questions please call us to further identify the perfect solution for your needs. 763.263.3156 and ask to speak with a selection specialist.

Happy Burning

Test Fire - Custom Linear Gas Fireplace

Acucraft just finished test firing a large custom linear gas fireplace. Prior to shipping all custom gas fireplaces, we burn and test every fireplace. The below fireplace has a huge 120" wide x 24" high viewing area. The customer wanted a large 12" -18" flame and has propane as the fuel source.

The pictures do not do justice to how awesome the flames look.

Viewing Area is 10' Wide x 2' High

Propane Gas and huge flames from a gas fireplace are difficult to achieve. Propane is heavier than air, Natural Gas is lighter than air. Propane needs to be delivered at 3X the pressure of Natural Gas, which requires much more outside air for combustion to be mixed with the Propane Gas. The addition of more outside air turns the flame blue. Acucraft and our customers desire tall slow moving yellow flames.
Therefor we at Acucraft, Custom designed a long 100+" elevated burner with the gas entering the burner in 3 areas, middle and both ends. This will evenly distribute the Propane. The design included 3 large 200,000 BTU valves, with variable flame height control via remote control.



100" + Custom Propane Burner Pan

Below is a link to a video of the fireplace in action.

The Customer selected recycled glass as the media, which will be installed at the site to hide the burner and more evenly distribute the flame.

The outside combustion air will be distributed to the firebox in the slotted openings, shown above along the front flange. There is  two panes of glass, this will keep the glass cooler to the touch with air transfering between the glass.

This Fireplace along with another large custom fireplace are being shipped to there new home in Indiana.

The fireplaces just keep getting bigger, below is a photo of a  huge gas fireplace we are testing tomorrow. The dimensions on this fireplace are 11' wide and 3' tall = 4,752 square inches of viewing area.




The firebox is completed and the insulated panels are being installed. Tomorrow we burn and test.

If you are interested in learning more on Custom Linear Gas Fireplace, please view the November 4th blog post on The 5 Key Decisions in Designing your Custom Linear Gas Fireplace


 Happy Burning!

Whole Home Heating

Acucraft's whole home heating technology is a great way to  maximize your fireplace and its heating potential! With the use of Remote Ducting and the Water Loop, you can heat both your air and your water with just your fireplace! The two options cost very little to install and they offer a huge return. Many wood burning customers who install both options use very little gas or electric to heat their air or water all winter long.

Acucraft's Remote Ducting option aids in the goal of heating your entire home as evenly as possible, with the elimination of cold spots. The Remote Ducting option uses B-Vent pipe to vent heated air to other areas of your home. You can vent to anotherroom on the same floor, upstairs or even below with the use of an in-line blower (this is different from the fireplace blower). You can even connect your Remote Ducting system into your cold air return and use your furnace fan to evenly distribute the heated air throughout your home, eliminating cold spots.

The diagram above shows the remote ducting taking the heat from the fireplace and transfering it to the furnace for distributing heat throughout the home using the existing ducts. Many of our customers have the duct end at the basement ceiling. With an in-line blower in the basement ceiling when you want the heat in the basement just turn on the in line blower.

The Z-MAX Fireplace photo above shows the remote ducting, the 8" duct on the right of the fireplace flue, transferring the heat from the fireplace to the other end of the home. The customer also installed an in line blower with variable speed to control the amount of heat transfered to the other end of the home. The duct can transfer up to 70% of the heat generated by the fireplace. The Z-MAX is capable of 130,000 BTU's an hour, so we are talking about a lot of heat - the average furnace is under a 100,000 BTU's an hour.

The Acucraft Water Loop is a stainless steel loop/ coil that is factory installed into the fireplace that can be used to heat your domestic water and/or your radiant in floor heating systems. The loop is designed to be a supplemental system. A small thermostatically controlled pump is installed that will automatically start circulating the water when your firebox becomes heated, providing supplemental heat for your water.

The above photo shows the Water Loop in one of our see through fireplaces, the loop is located in the center of the firebox.

The photo shows the exterior of the fireplace, the water lines connect to the water loop where there are currently the red proctective caps. One line bringing the water in, the other bringing the hot water out.

The remote ducting and the water loop are part of the Acucraft's whole home heating technology. The options are all hidden within your fireplace and with the thermostat control, they turn themselves on and off.

If you have any questions, please contact Acucraft and we can assist with your specific whole home heating plan.

Happy Burning,
Acucraft

5 key decisions for designing a Linear Gas Fireplace



This Linear Gas Fireplace is installed in a Houlihans Restaurant

Linear Gas Fireplaces have a wide 4' to 16' viewing area and normally are not very tall 18" to 36". Although, some of our clients want a taller viewing area of up to 48".

There are five key decisions in designing your custom linear gas fireplace.





Drawing of a Custom See Through Gas Linear Fireplace

1. Linear Gas Fireplaces can be single, see through or multi sided, what fits your commercial building or home the best?

Custom Linear Front and Side View

Outdoor Custom Gas Linear Fireplace

Custom Linear Peninsula Gas Fireplace

2. How big do you want your viewing area to be? Width and Height and Depth. Remember, this can easily change as we go through the design process with you. The majority of the designers and architects we work with design the linear to be 3-4x wider than tall, therefore an 8' wide linear is 2' tall. The rules are not steadfast, many of our 12'-16' wide fireplaces are 2'-3' tall.

3. Flame, How big of a flame are you looking to achieve and are you looking for heat? The flame height is variable, however the bigger the flame the more heat generated and the more BTU's the fireplace will consume. We offer two types of burners:

Option 1: is a single line burner and the media does spread it out a little.

Option 2: is a pan style burner that more evenly distributes the flames.

Heat - If you are not looking to achieve any heat from the fireplace we design a heat relief duct to transfer it outside, you can then have the large flame without having to worry about the heat.

4. Media Selection.  Media is the material used to cover the base of the fireplace and the burner. There are 4 main media styles to choose from and they can be combined, for example the stones on top of glass, and they are:

-Recycled Glass

-Glass Crystal

-Stones

-Log



Recycled Glass - available in all colors and are irregular shaped designed for fire in 1/2" to 3/4" size

Glass Crystals are round and smooth. They are designed to be used with fire, the mirrored reflection from the fire and the radiant heat is great!

Stones mixed with Black recycled glass

This outdoor has a mixture of logs and stones

5. Glass/ Fronts - we offer three choices a. single pane of glass b. dual pane system with outside air traveling between the panes to keep the glass cooler or c. Open - no glass or front

This linear fireplace is open - no glass or front. The view is front and right side.

Listed above are the 5 main decisions required to complete the design of your custom linear gas fireplace

1. number of sides

2. viewing area

3. flame height

4. media

5. glass / fronts

There are a couple additional installation items

1. How are you going to vent your fireplace? - vertically through your roof, horizontally out the side wall or down in through the floor. All our linear fireplaces use class A insulated stainless steel flue.

Downward vented 16' wide fireplace

The down drafted see through fireplace installed

2. Combustion Air - all our fireplaces with glass fronts use outside for combustion, this is typically brought in the floor from below the fireplace

3. The fireplace will require a gas line and some require electrical for the ignition of the pilot.

As always, the Acucraft Custom Fireplace Design Team is there to guide you through the process. Please comment on this post to let us know if we answered all your questions.

Happy Burning.



Rectangular Doors Now Standard for the Hearthroom Series Fireplace!

 Acucraft announces rectangular doors and frame for the Hearthroom Series Fireplace!

Fully Standard Hearthroom Series Fireplace

Acucraft's most popular wood burning fireplace, The Hearthroom, is now available with both rectangular and arched doors, standard. Previously, The Hearthroom was only standard with an arched viewing area, and any rectangular Hearthroom fireplaces were custom designed. But thanks to many requests and custom orders we are now offering a standard rectangular viewing area for the Hearthroom 36 and 44, single sided and see through.

Hearthroom (Arched)

Hearthroom (Rectangular)

           

 Many of our clients are looking to maintain a consistent theme throughout their space - calling for either an arched or a rectangular fireplace. Some of our customers come looking for a see through fireplace, but each room has for a different design and overall feel. In order to help provide exactly what you're looking for, we can design and build your fireplace with one side arched and the other rectangular. For example, we recently built a fireplace for a client where the interior side of the indoor/outdoor fireplace is rectangular, but the exterior side is arched.

Fully Modified Hearthroom (Rectangular Viewing Area)

The above fireplace is a fully modified standard Hearthroom 44.

     - Aged bronze patina
     - Medieval package
            - Overlapping strapping
            - Clavos
     - Custom handles
     - Centered grids across glass
     - Removed venting and controls above and below doors

Fully Modified Hearthroom (Rectangular Viewing Area)

Acucraft has been designing and building rectangular doors since 1978, but when we came out with the Hearthroom Series, our clients were overwhelmingly looking for arched doors, so that is what we focused on. But today, we have found that many people want the dimensions of the Hearthroom but the look of rectangular doors. 

At Acucraft, our customers' requests drive our designs. By selling direct, we are not only able to work with you to determine exactly what you're looking for, but we have the unique opportunity to be able to see industry and design trends through the lens of our customers. We are always looking to improve our selection of standard models by listening to you. Let us know what you would like to see next!

Click here to learn more about our Hearthroom single-sided and Hearthroom see-through fireplaces.

Happy Burning,

Acucraft

The BLAZE 10 by Acucraft Fireplaces

Acucraft Fireplaces is proud to announce The Blaze 10 Linear Gas Fireplace

Acucraft Fireplaces is known for designing custom unique fireplaces. Acucraft's goal in creating the Blaze 10 Gas Fireplace was to offer a large viewing area, beautiful flames, many design options all at a great value. 

• The Blaze 10 offers a large 120" wide x 30" tall viewing area. 
• The Blaze 10 base price is $12,950 which includes:
• 108" Electronic Ignition--Natural Gas Burner w/Valve Assemblies 135,000 BTUs Adjustable to Achieve Desired Flame Height
• Wall Switched On/Off
• Glass Media included - additional media upgrades available ( River Rock, Gas Logs, Gems, etc..) 
• Large 120" wide x 30" Tall  Viewing Area
• Tempered Glass - Single Pane Removable Frames 
• Outside Preheated Combustion Air 
• Vent Hood Designed for a 8" Class A Flue System
• Termination can be Vertical, Horizontal or Down Drafted - almost unlimited options
• Insulated Panels - 2" thick high temp - Finished Dimensions - 137" wide x 60" tall x 24" deep
• Firebox Constructed of 7GA Steel
• Double Welded Inside and Out
• Lifetime Warranty
• Optional Upgrades
• Dual Pane Glass with Passive Air - required for commercial 
• "Air Shield"  - patent pending - additional pane of glass extending 1" from front of fireplace supported by brackets allowing room air to cool the glass. 
• Porcelain Reflective Panels - can be installed in the rear and sides of the fireplace. 
• Media Upgrades - The interior base of the fireplace comes standard with Recycled Glass with many colors to choose from - The upgrade options are
• Gas Logs 
• Gems
• River Rocks 
• Etc... 

Please contact an Acucraft Fireplace Selection Specialist at 763.263.3156 or info@acucraft.com to receive any additional information on The Blaze 10 Gas Fireplace, including quotes, lead times, framing specs and installation manual. 

Happy Burning. 

Determine Proper Chimney Height Using The 10 -2 Rule

The 10-2 Rule is the guideline for determining the amount of chimney required for proper operation and draw of your wood burning fireplace or stove. This guideline is the same for exposed "naked" chimney's as it is for enclosed chimney's in a chase.

This guideline has 3 main components:
1. Is your chimney within 10' of your peak?
 If you are within 10' of the highest point of your roof, typically the peak, the chimney needs to extend 2' above that point. Therefore, if you draw a 10' Radius around your chimney the flue needs to be 2' above everything within that radius. The minimum length above the roof is 3' ( this is why some industry people use the term 2-3-10 which means 2' above anything within 10' and a minimum of 3')

2. Is your chimney farther horizontal than 10' away from the peak?
If you are farther than 10' away from the peak, your chimney needs to be 2' above the highest point within 10'. For example, your chimney is exiting 20' away from the peak and you have a 6/12 pitch roof. If you draw a horizontal line 10' the chimney will be 6' from the shingles and you need to add 2' from that mark, therefore you will have a total of 8' of chimney above your shingles.  Please note: if your chimney is exposed and is greater than 5' tall, a Roof Brace Kit is required to keep it supported.

3. Does your chimney have more than 2 pair of elbows and/or is your chimney being installed higher than 4,500' above see level?
All rules and guidelines have exceptions, the more offsets you have and the higher the elevation the taller your chimney will need to be. For example, if you are building in Breckenridge, CO which is appx 9,600' ft above sea level OR you have two pair of offsets, we would need to analyze the fireplace opening, the total chimney run in feet, the distances between the elbows and how much is offset.

It is amazing that if your chimney is 6"-12" short how the draw is impacted. As always, if you have any questions please let us know.

Happy Burning!

See Through Wood Burning Fireplace

Wood Burning See Through Hearthroom 44 Fireplace

Great Room Side of See Through Fireplace - the nose actually lights up

Acucraft Fireplaces is known for our see through wood burning fireplaces. We have specialized in designing see through fireplaces for over 20 years. We have 20 key ratios in every see through we make. See Through fireplaces are a great way to have a fireplace in 2 rooms or separating a large room with one flue system. Many of our see through customers install between a great room and a kitchen OR a great room and an outdoor deck ( Indoor/Outdoor great for loading wood outside and inside you get the heat along with ambiance) OR a great room and a kitchen.

Acucraft  manufactures 5 standards See Through Fireplaces and offer Custom Sized See Through Fireplaces

The kitchen side of the fireplace

The kitchen side of the fireplace is typically the side where the customers install the BBQ Grill 

Acucraft's BBQ Grill is made from Kitchen Grade 304 Stainless Steel and is easily removable. 

Happy Burning 

The Fireplace and remodel  in the above photos was completed by Williams Remodeling from Waukee, Iowa 

Great Work!