Burn is a word to consider when you install a new insert into an old fireplace in a home with a lot of wood, such as mine. The walls of my house are stone, but the beams supporting the second floor and the floorboards laid across them are made of wood. So is the roof, under the tiles. The man who was to sell me the insert and install it said it was essential to safeguard against leaks in the stovepipe and to ensure that the hot metal did not at any point touch the dry wood of the rafters in the eaves. He insisted on this. He said if I accepted his bid, he would replace the entire stovepipe inside the chimney, some 10 feet of stainless steel pipe, hidden within the old hood and traversing the wall of the house to continue upward outside the house, eventually passing through the wooden eaves and up out of the roof. The man and I stood in my patio, our necks craned upward. The state of the pipe that we could see was not the concern, he repeated. It was what we couldn’t see that worried him. I nodded. The implication was that you couldn’t be too careful. The man reiterated that the heat from the new, efficient insert had nothing to do with the heat of the old fireplace. To take no chances, he would construct an insulating box around the pipe near the eves. Why? Because wood ignites with just a spark at 250° C (about 480° F); at 500° C (about 930° F), ignition is spontaneous, and wood erupts into fire.
Spontaneous combustion. That sounded scary. But in this damp wet climate, it was hard to imagine. Still, I gave a shudder, for I was thinking not of wood but of humans bursting into flame. Dickens’s description of spontaneous human combustion had stayed with me from reading Bleak House decades earlier, though very little else of the book had. Melville and Gogol also use spontaneous human combustion to kill off characters. I personally was in no danger of erupting. Not enough surrounding heat in my house or enough alcohol in my veins. But the house itself was a concern. I told the man what my neighbors had reported to me: before the house was mine, a fire had once broken out and damaged the building. The man nodded, then shook his head. The first job, he said, once I’d accepted his bid, was to make sure the fireplace drew well. His knowledge and thoroughness convinced me. Before he left, I knew I would accept his bid, no matter how much it was. Better safe than sorry.
Still, I hated the idea of the insulating box.
“You don’t take chances,” he said. But I still hated the idea of it, and I thought of it like a cast on a broken arm, a scab on a wound. It would be ugly. Isn’t there a collar of some sort, I suggested over the phone two days later, to put around the pipe and insulate it?
No, he said.
What’s more, he wouldn’t sell me the insert without constructing the box, so I sighed and bowed to his expertise. I signed the contract, which included an extra $250 for the insulating box, then I returned it via email. Nothing else was itemized—just a figure for the insert and installation, plus the box. No mention either of replacing the broken tiles on the hearth that he had promised to do, though I had reminded him twice. “A minor matter,” he had said.
I was signing away the simple roofline I had never properly enjoyed. Now, I started raising my eyes to the roof every time I entered and left my house. I did it so often, I developed a crook in my neck. “Oh roof,” I sighed.
The man had promised to do the job in five weeks, but eight weeks had passed, and he hadn’t yet come. When I called, he put on a show of checking records. “Oh, yes, let’s see, yes, the order is all here. We’ll come, let’s see … ” Then he named a date two weeks off. I reminded him of his intention to check if the existing fireplace drew well. Yes, yes, he agreed, and if he didn’t come before the workmen, he’d come with them. I was again reassured. Sort of.
Did he come? No. My point is not to complain about the wait or the attention but to say my confidence was eroding. He did not come to oversee the work. He did not check that the fireplace drew properly. He did not have his workmen replace the pipe. He did not put in a grill over the hole for the air intake. He did not replace the broken tile of the hearth. What else? you wonder? But I wonder, Isn’t all that more than enough?
Anyone used to dealing in the business world, negotiating, might find my complaints to be minor. But when the workmen first tested the insert, the whole house filled with smoke. I was at work, but my sons told me you could not see where the smoke came from, but you could smell it, and the air became hazy. The second time, after the workman opened up the hood again and stuffed the cavity full of some insulating material that looked disconcertingly like straw, no telltale smoke filled the house.
None for now! I thought. But how long before the connection between the old pipe and the new gave? How long before the crack in the old pipe—if there was one—widened? Wasn’t that the possibility the shop owner had suggested to get my business? He had played on my lack of knowledge and my tendency to imagine a disaster.
The second day, when the workmen were about to start on the insulating box as I was heading off to work, I asked the bricklayer to make the piece as discreet as possible. Don’t worry, he told me.
Does the command not to worry ever reassure anyone? I feared the worst.
It was night when I returned, and I could see nothing. The next morning, when I peered up at first light, it seemed nothing had been done. A little more light and I saw that there was in fact no unsightly box at all. Instead, the workmen had put in place a sort of collar, such as I had imagined and suggested. Neat, discreet, unobtrusive, almost invisible, almost nonexistent. I get to take my chances after all. I put my hand on the wall of the house, still staring up. It was a beautiful sight to me. Then I headed back inside to light a fire.
