Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Brought to you from Ohio based home inspection company of Habitation Investigation. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
From Tudor Hearths to Safe Chimneys: Heat, History, and How Not to Burn Your House Down
A roaring fire feels timeless, but the way we move heat and smoke has changed dramatically—from open hearths that once filled rooms with fumes to thoughtfully engineered systems that keep warmth in and hazards out. We explore how castles got away with walk-in fireboxes, why Count Rumford’s angled design still matters, and how Benjamin Franklin’s stove reinvented efficiency by keeping more heat where you need it.
We also get practical about safety. You’ll hear why clay flue liners became a turning point, how the late adoption of refractory mortar left older chimneys vulnerable, and what today’s repair options look like—from one-piece stainless liners to in-place relining systems. We break down the hidden risks inside manufactured chases, where a small misalignment can leak heat into wood framing and quietly prime a structure fire. And we draw a hard line between chimney fires fueled by creosote and full-on house fires caused by heat escaping the flue path.
If you burn wood, the big lesson is simple: avoid “low and slow.” Smoldering fires invite creosote, and creosote can burn near 2,000°F, cracking tiles and opening pathways to nearby framing. We share real-world tips for hot, efficient burns, using stovepipe thermometers, caring for catalytic combustors, scheduling chimney sweeps, and understanding the basic anatomy of your system—firebox, damper, smoke chamber, and flue—so you can spot trouble early. Subscribe for more smart home know-how, share this with someone who loves their fireplace, and leave a review with your best fire-safety habit—we’ll feature our favorites next time.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
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Alright, Laura. Let's talk about fireplaces, chimneys, and kind of the parts of them and how they developed over the years.
SPEAKER_01:I like history. History is fun. I'm a geek.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you are a history geek. So anyway, fireplaces. Originally in old house in older houses, it was I think it's like the old Tudor style. It was just a rectangular built room, and you had a fire in the middle and a hole in the roof. And that's how you got the smoke out. Really old school.
SPEAKER_01:That does not sound healthy because I can't see the smoke going out well.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that might be why the life expenses were quite a bit shorter.
SPEAKER_01:That could be.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, so you had that. And then you had fireplaces, like they started using bricks to for your firebox, and then it directed the smoke outside, which at one point the chimneys were actually made out of wood, like sticks and mud. And they had a string. You'd still have your rock, your stone, uh base, and firebox, but you pull down the chimney.
SPEAKER_01:This is sounding reminiscent of an alone series.
SPEAKER_00:It does, yeah, it does. Look, I've seen several people.
SPEAKER_01:We've seen several people going down there.
SPEAKER_00:So that was that. And then that's that's how it was. And the chimney were huge at the time. The fireboxes, you get some nicer places. Remember when we're we're where were we?
SPEAKER_01:We were in Ireland. What castle? It wasn't Barney Castle, was it?
SPEAKER_00:We were in Barney Castle. Right, but I don't think it had a huge fire.
SPEAKER_01:Like you could walk into it.
SPEAKER_00:You could walk, I can completely stand up in that. But there's also the And they they'd made it smaller.
SPEAKER_01:Whichever one I'm thinking of had been smaller. Like they had started out larger, and then like however many hundreds of years ago, they made it smaller, but it was still where we could walk into it and stand and they could roast a whole cow in it.
SPEAKER_00:That was that was uh Barney Castle. They roast a whole cow inside that thing. But there's another place we went into Kylmore Abbey. Kylmore Abbey, they had a huge room. They had it was it was no just like the I don't know what you call the sitting room, whatever, but they had a room that had a huge fireplace where I could not stand up in, but it was easily five feet high. I had to bend down a little bit, but it was five feet high, just as wide, and that was the opening for the firebox. See, that's just cool. It's cool, but it's very inefficient, which is why there's a guy called Count Rumsford. Okay, he designed um his design was the firebox was not quite so deep, and it was angled, it went a little bit narrower as it went back and narrowed in a little bit, and that back was angled. And what that did, that helped improve uh heat reflecting back into the house. Okay, also a bit more efficient as far as airflow. Because old, like even now, like open fireplaces, you don't have the glass doors, a lot of your air just gets sucked straight up and out through the chimney. And because you got all that combustion going on, the replacement air for that stuff that's getting sucked out, it has to be has to come in through other areas of the house, such as your cracks in your windows, doors. If you have a crawl space, it's probably sucking up some of that musty air from the crawl space, sucking that up. So Rumsford style fireplace were more efficient. But then you got Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin was like 18, like 17, something like that. He made the Franklin stove, which is the pot belly stove. Yep, and those were fantastic, and and he was such an awesome dude. He he he liked plumbing, which is unique back then, but he had he liked indoor plumbing, but he did not he did not want to patent that that stove. He said it's free for everybody, anybody to use that design because it's it's cut down a wood, it greatly reduced air loss, right? And it greatly, you know, helped help people stay warm. So that that was awesome by that.
SPEAKER_01:That is very cool.
SPEAKER_00:But as as time went on, they you know they they get they did better, but up until 1890, chimneys did not have a uh flue liner on the inside, it was just like brick or stone and mortar going all the way up. So around 1890, they said, hey, we should do a flue liner to help this thing draft to draft better. So that happened. Like our house, our previous house built in 1883 at the newest, there's it was an unlined chimney. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Because we were the ones that ended up getting it lined.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it makes it makes sense. Like we put down a stainless steel line pipe through there for the wood stove, right? And that made it a lot more efficient and and safe to use because our that was not safe to use without a liner through there.
SPEAKER_01:Wasn't there also a difference in the mortar that they used? Like at a certain point, they switched to one that was more heat resistant.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yep, good point. So refractory mortar, refractory mortar can't handle the heat, the high heat. They didn't start using refractory mortar until 1990. Holy crap. Which makes no sense to me that would take this long to go, you know what? I wonder if this heat is making this mortar fall apart.
SPEAKER_01:So, like, how long did they know about refractory mortar? Like, how long had it been invented before they decided to use it in chimneys?
SPEAKER_00:That I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:They probably That might be an interesting question.
SPEAKER_00:Like, well, it's not getting that hot inside that chimney because of all the airflow. But once they put in the flues, okay, now it's a line harder line. Now that all the heat is going through a little narrower space, and they probably like, oh, that stuff is now hot, deteriorating. Yeah, it's hotter deteriorating, so we need to switch that up. So yeah, 1990s is pretty much when they started requiring refractory mortar, and that's not hearing we we can't as a home inspector. We we don't know. Is it refractory mortar? I don't know. But if it's after if it's before 1990, probably not.
SPEAKER_01:Probably not, which means then if it's before 1990 and it doesn't have a liner in, it probably should. Well, it it yeah, like uh automatically because you don't have the appropriate mortar in it. Or could they line it, like could they do that little squeegee thing and redo that with refractory mortar?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There are ways to repair chimneys. Like uh, say you you got second one mortars gone in the middle of the chimney. There's no way you can reach down and repair that. There are ways they can uh force more new mortar into those cracks and and basically basically skim coat the entire interior of the chimney. So that would be worth it. So that's that it could it can be done.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I I liked the stainless steel liner, like it was all one piece that we put in, so there wasn't any potential for it separating or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there there is.
SPEAKER_01:And we just we didn't have to worry about it, it was in and done.
SPEAKER_00:Correct. Ours was a single piece. Yeah, you need to get those looked at as well because I have seen metal sections of the pipes where they never really line them up. So you're I'm here, I'm doing the chimney scope, going there's a gas fireplace, follow that chimney with a camera. All of a sudden the pipes do not line up. There's an offset where they don't line up perfectly, one just off to the side a little bit, which means there's a gap where the heat coming up that pipe all of a sudden goes outside of that pipe. And if it's a modern house with like a like a wooden, like a manufactured insert, like wood burning insert, like the new house, it's just it's just metal, maybe refractor panel in the background behind the firebox. Those chimneys, they look like the same as the house, the same vinyl siding they to put on. Well, outside that metal pipe, that chimney is just it's wooden frame. It's wooden frame. They built just like the house. You got your wooden frame, the sheathing, the house wrap, and then the siding.
SPEAKER_01:So that's gonna start causing pyrolization of that wood behind that area then. Correct.
SPEAKER_00:You get enough heat coming out through the through that gap, the whole inside of that can heat up and then eventually catch fire. It all depends on how big a fire you have going on. If it's gas, probably a little less likely. But I've seen those manufactured um inserts, they they burn, they can burn wood some wood some of them, and you you get some sparks flying up there inside your area that you have charred over the last or the previous owner charred for the last 10, 15, 10 years.
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SPEAKER_00:You're you're you're gonna have a chimney fire. Didn't you it's really more of a structure fire at that point because it's not it's not the creosote burning.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's the house.
SPEAKER_00:It's that it's the wooden structure around that chimney. Yeah, that's a house, that's a house fire.
SPEAKER_01:Didn't you say that you would talk to a guy that that put in those um those liners and like the the ones that got pieced together, and they didn't scope them afterwards, they just pushed down until they heard it click. So you don't know if it's clicking correctly or what, but they just keep building on that, and then they never look to make sure that it was all done right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so they would yeah, so they they'd have to have some of a I can't imagine just dropping the top one down, but they would connect them and lower them down and then push them to make sure they're they're connected, but that's doesn't it doesn't work. I've seen uh metal liner where a couple sections had offsets in them, which each offset is an opportunity for the heat and sparks to escape and go around to the structure outside of that flue. So definitely not not a safe thing. There are there's not real good stats, less than mine knew, regarding house fires that were caused by the chimney. Mine growing up because your yours didn't.
SPEAKER_01:Well we we had a wood stove.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so you was your fire inside the the flu?
SPEAKER_01:I believe what they said was that where it joined the ceiling, that that part there. The thimble the okay, something had separated there and it had caused over time pyrolization of that wood. Now that I know what that is, I didn't at the time, and it just spread across the attic at that point.
SPEAKER_00:So you your at your pipe there may have been disconnected for a long time, and it just finally got hot enough to do you know to catch fire. But last time you there's some there wasn't real good stats. Okay, so you got chimney fire and you got a house fire. Chimney fire, this is where you're talking about the creosote building up.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Creosote is it's like unburned wood particles, basically. It's unburnt uh particles from the smoke. And I this how I it may not be exactly correct. I think of creosote as kind of condensed, it's a condensation of the smoke along the sides.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that's kind of where I was yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So eventually that stuff it is flammable, and I just looked something up. That stuff can burn like 2,000 degrees, the creosote when it burns.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and that's what the chimney sweep is supposed to come in and get rid of.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, chimney, when you have a higher chimney sweep, they can take a look, and then they could have like special brushes, vacuums, or they're doing that to knock down all that that creosote, at least the buildup of there's this flus are never gonna be clean. Right. Clean up the eat off of after after after you start using them. But they they take down all that creosote because that creosote buildup, that is that by itself is a fire hazard. And if it catches fire, it gets, like I said, 2,000 degrees, it will crack your tiles. And it will damage your chimney. Correct, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Now, I remember you getting a thermostat for our because when at our old house we used to have a wood-burning stove. So I remember we had a thermostat on that because you like to keep it burning at a certain temperature to lower the amount of creosote that was in. Oh, yes, yes. So explain that to people.
SPEAKER_00:All right, so since creosote is the condensation of the smoke, if you burn it, and this is what happened, this is popular for like uh wood stoves. People do this. They don't have to start the fire all over the next morning. So they put the fire there and they keep the dampers kind of closed, give it just enough air so it stays lit, barely lit, the coal's going, and what you have it give a really low, slow burning fire. Well, it's not that hot, so it's easier for uh the smoke to hit, I'll call it dew point, where it will start condensing. Just like moisture in the air, how it condenses like a cold can of soda, the moisture in the air will condense and get the outside wet. Because of condensation. So if it's if the fire's burning low and slow, you're gonna hit that condensation point for that smoke easily. Plus, you don't have that much air going through, which makes this allows the smoke just to linger and adhere easier. And adhere. So you so you need to have you're supposed to have your fireplace, like the wood stove pipe. I think it was like 250 to 370 around around that. I I keep seeing different numbers. I I so I I think there needs to be better research on that, but you do not burn it low and slow. You burn it nice and hot. You don't want to if you have a wood stove, you don't want to your stove glowing red. You're probably over over.
SPEAKER_01:And you're melting it and you're damaging it.
SPEAKER_00:You're over firing that. Well, if you have a catalytic um catalycome converter, is that what you're doing? Yeah. It is basically the same thing. But anyway, there's stuff in there. Some of them will have uh platinum in like a little waffle thing that allows the combustion to happen at a lower temperature.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And that will help us burn the smoke. But but those go out, like those don't yeah, those need to be replaced every now and then. Or if you burn a wood that had a piece that had a nail in it, you're gonna destroy that that thing automatically. So no nails in your wood. Correct, correct. Depending on what you're burning. But you don't you gotta have it a nice hot fire. That way you're not likely to are gonna have that that uh smoke form creosote. And if it's hot, burning hot, you probably got pretty good airflow. You almost have to have that much oxygen for it to burn nice and hot. You're getting the smoke. If there's any smoke at all, getting it go straight up and out. Because we would burn that our wood stove hot, efficient. You let it burn, then you let go go all the way down, then you fire it up nice and hot again. You would do that, and when it was going, there was no smoke coming out. No, because it was a very hot, efficient burn, just like the fireplace we have now. Well, the fireplace we have now is also a different design, it's a different design, but it's it's designed to burn hot, very like unrestricted airflow on this thing when you burn it. But it's totally different type, it has lots of mass to absorb heat, so it's it's masonry heater. Maybe we'll talk about those some other time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, let's do that some other time.
SPEAKER_00:But you do not burn your wood low and slow. That's how you become get a fire hazard with all the Creso buildup. But you can a Creso, like I said, 2,000 degrees or higher, that will damage your mortar, crack your tiles. If you got little gaps in your in your flue, you're you're you're really risking catching your structure around there on fire.
SPEAKER_01:And you don't want to do that. Trust me, as someone who lived through that as a kid, you don't want that.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. So I think that's about it on this one. So oh I think we about all right, so structure of a fireplace. We have a class. So if you're a real estate agent, we get we'll teach a class on this, but you got your firebox, we put your wood. Above that's the damper, which opens and closes, whether or not you allow air to go up and out through the chimney. Right above the damper, it's called the smoke chamber. And what that does, it allows it kind of blocks wind from coming down and blowing the smoke from your fireplace into your house. That's a good thing. It helps with that because the angle of the damper, and there's a shelf there to catch debris. But anyway, so you go firebox, damper, smoke chamber where it angles up into your flue and then it goes up and out.
SPEAKER_01:That's the design of modern fireplace.
SPEAKER_00:Of modern fireplace. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Well, if anybody wants a uh chimney fireplace class, let us know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, yeah, we can come to your office, do one if you want. Or we can just do it over. If you're a home buyer, a home seller, or a homeowner, have us do a chimney scope so you don't ruin your your your winter by burning your house down and killing your family. I mean that would be that's the tragedy. Fortunately, people dying from uh um house fires has gone greatly has gone greatly down. That's all because primarily all because of smoke detectors.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:That is the main way that people are staying safe from fires and not dying anymore. So all right, everybody. Thank you. Bye bye.
