Fireplace with ... handles?

[drk]

Hi all

I grew up in a house with a fireplace, my father taught me how to make a fire and properly use the fireplace. I built fires in other people's homes (in their fireplaces, not in the middle of their bedroom or anything ) when I was visiting as a teen and the parents were out. But when I came here I suddenly saw fireplaces with ... handles?



I have seen it in various places, so it seems quite commonplace here. I've only seen fireplaces with at best 1 handle, to open/close the chimney. But 2?

Can someone please educate me on those handles so I can safely uses fireplaces here in Finland and not burn down the place or kill people with carbon monoxide poisoning or something?

The best I've come up with so far is that the top one is to open/close the chimney. So it should be open while using the fireplace. And the bottom one seems to flip a sort of lid which makes the heated air flow around the soap stones, heating them more before the air exits around via another way into the chimney.

I may be horribly wrong, I've never used such a fireplace before. I tried to find information online but I can't even find a picture of a fireplace with 2 handles, let alone a video about it on youtube (honestly I tried )

[Upphew]

Hi all

I grew up in a house with a fireplace, my father taught me how to make a fire and properly use the fireplace. I built fires in other people's homes (in their fireplaces, not in the middle of their bedroom or anything ) when I was visiting as a teen and the parents were out. But when I came here I suddenly saw fireplaces with ... handles?



I have seen it in various places, so it seems quite commonplace here. I've only seen fireplaces with at best 1 handle, to open/close the chimney. But 2?

Can someone please educate me on those handles so I can safely uses fireplaces here in Finland and not burn down the place or kill people with carbon monoxide poisoning or something?

The best I've come up with so far is that the top one is to open/close the chimney. So it should be open while using the fireplace. And the bottom one seems to flip a sort of lid which makes the heated air flow around the soap stones, heating them more before the air exits around via another way into the chimney.

I may be horribly wrong, I've never used such a fireplace before. I tried to find information online but I can't even find a picture of a fireplace with 2 handles, let alone a video about it on youtube (honestly I tried )

Maybe this picture will give you some idea: https://www.warmauunit.com/wp-content/u ... iminta.jpg
Basically you open the lower one to get nice draft in the beginning and close it after a while to get more heat to lower part of the fireplace.

[drk]

That is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you And also what I imagined was going on. It's good to get some confirmation. Thanks Upphew

[network_engineer]

We've had a similar problem, we don't know which way the flap opens, i.e. is it now open OR closed!!! No idea how to solve that. I tried going with a camera... but the soot and all it is so dark, I could not figure it out. Weird that even the chimney sweep couldn't offer any help. Not too sure.

[drk]

Hi network engineer!

Great job btw

Yes I didn't know what the bottom handle in the picture did exactly. So I stuck my head in the fireplace (don't worry it wasn't burning at the time ) and used a flashlight to shine up the chimney. Then I changed the handle position and did the same. It made me figure out which way it was open and which way it was closed. Now there is a post-it note under the handle (which I temporarily removed for the picture as it made me feel quite silly posting that ). An alternative is to stick your phone in the fireplace and take pictures with the flash on with the handle in different positions. The resulting pictures may not be sharp but should be good enough to see a difference between the handle positions.

The top one is just a pull/push handle and so that is obvious. Pulling it out opens it up, pushing it in closes the chimney. Most of the time I have it at about half or just less of that open. Except for when I just start the fire, then it's full open for a few minutes to get circulation going.

Hope I gave some useful advice