Submitted by: Rumz
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Jury Riggers Unite!
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“It’s almost a good idea.” –Drew Carey
The specific reason why this is a bad idea is that carbon monoxide will get into the pipe and spread into the house instead of going up the chimney like it’s supposed to.
It doesn’t take much. Even if the pipe doesn’t burn through right away it can get in through the joints between the different sections of pipe.
Oh, come on. Carbon monoxide never hurt anyone!
Not a horrible idea – just horrible implementation…
If the fan is on the intake side the tube would have positive pressure – any leak would actually blow air out. If they put the fan on the outlet side they would be an idiot for not only creating suction of carbon monoxide, but also melting their fan with hot air
Agree with Mr. Obvious too that they could use the chimney effect as well…
If there’s a fan blowing cold air into the pipe the leak will be fresh air out into the fire, and not CO in.
And it would have to be heavy gauge steel duct in the fire – the aluminum flex duct would burn through >likethat< and be a mess.
This is almost epic.
If you put a high temp, water-tight tube in there, you can heat water and pump it to other rooms for use in classic radiators. This is a decent hack it you lack a gas water heater.
It could be a couple of outside-air intake ducts. That’s why fireplaces can chill the place more than heat, because they pull cold air in from everywhere else.
Looks like someone owned a VW Beetle at one point in life….
Melting point of aluminum duct reached in 3…2… oops, never mind, too late.
I remember a product not unlike this when I was a child.
It was a tubular grate for holding the wood with a fan forcing cool air into the bottom and the warm air was supposed to come out of the top and into the room.
It didn’t work very well.
This is all moronic. And it could be fixed so easily…
Hot air rises. The air in the tube will get hot. But since the tube is lying flat, it can’t go anywhere. So all that happens is that the tube will get hot.
Now, if they had put that tube in at the bottom of the fire, and out a bit *higher*, that hot air would go out at the top tube, and it would suck cold air in. No fan needed, you’d get a nice “draught” or “draft” through what is called the “chimney effect”. This would indeed help to heat the room by taking heat from the fire into air that get released into the room, and not up the chimney.
When did Doctor Octopus become a chimney sweeper?
what none of you notice, is that the tubing goes through the fire, there is no opening inside the fireplace, what i’m thinking this is, is a homemade radiator system kinda like a schools (least thats how they heat the schools here in South Africa) the fire makes the water in the pipes hot and then the water and the pipes conduct the heat around the house
There *is* an opening in the fireplace, several in fact. (a) there are unsealed gaps between the different sections of pipe (it’s not a continuous piece, they just don’t manufacture them like that) and (b) the metal used for ductwork is very thin and has a very low resistance to heat and melting. The coals from a hot fire will probably melt it in a matter of seconds if they are in direct contact, as appears to be in the picture.
The pictured kludge is UNSAFE. Do not do it. As little as 100ppm of carbon monoxide can kill you. On the bright side, the setup here will probably self-destruct before it kills you.
Looks like a nice home….probably with a mortgage so high they can’t afford heat…good way to possibly char your major investment.
That is what insurance is for padawon.
Or, if you do it right, a way to collect on your home insurance.
Hey, I’m green hexagon!
That looks safe.
22 watt stereo cooling fan blows 65cfm into pipe on the right, air is heated to about 150 degrees. The pipe on the left is pointed into the central air return about 6 feet away. No carbon monoxide because of positive pressure, no burn through because the air through the pipe prevents it reaching a critical temp. Its about 450 watts to run the central air fan, 4500 watts to run the central air heat, so 90% reduction in energy. At a balmy 75 degrees in my main room and about 68 throughout the house during well below freezing temperatures, well…..
Of course, if the electricity ever goes off while the fireplace is in use, the plastic tubing will soon ignite and set fire to the rest of the house.
Awe rumble.
They’ll be especially disappointed when they find out that heat travels UP…
If the pipe is completely sealed off where it goes through the fireplace and it was really thick iron or something it might actually work. Also, the Carbon Monoxide would only get into the pipe if it wasn’t sealed off.
I still don’t think its the safest way of doing things though.
It looks to me like there’s a solid section of tubing in the fireplace which connects to the cheap dryer vent tubing on the outside of the fireplace. If the stuff inside the fireplace were really going to melt, it would have melted by the time this photo was taken. I’m still baffled by the value of this kludge though…
Anyone else notice that the flame is blue/violet?
That is a seriously hot fireplace!
And I’m fairly positive that no insurance would cover burning your house down through this kind of stupidity.