Dear Jim Last year I did an awful lot of research and found your site and I believe an even older site of your earlier experiences building fireplaces. I used much of the information I found to build a working fireplace for my good friend here in the San Francisco Bay area. I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself with a lot of cussing constructing this fireplace. The challenge was to use and existing place in a century old house's dining room to add a fireplace that looked original.

Of course I thought of only using a Rumford. Although the design and completed project is not quite up to the exact dimensions of the Rumford, this fireplace drafts perfectly and throws a lot of heat. I am also including pictures of the throat and smoke chamber that I formed using fire mortars. These were a beast to install. The throat I was able to get in on the main floor but the smoke chamber I had to winch down through the shaft from the attic of the house. What fun. Anyways thanks for your help and returning my phone call so long ago. Best regards, Kelly Belcher Kelly, Interesting. Thanks for the pictures. But why didn't you just buy our Rumford throat and smoke chamber? I think it should have been easier, less expensive and at least as good of a refractory material. I'm also interested in how you got it built in San Francisco where they have all but banned wood-burning. Were you able to do it as a "repair" of the grandfathered existing fireplace? I'm really quite interested in that since there are a lot of existing fireplaces in the Bay Area and we have quite a lot of experience in repairing or "Rumfordiszing" those existing fireplaces. See http://www.rumford.com/rumfordize.html You may have found the page at http://www.rumford.com/FlueWorks.html about my old company back in Ohio where I "Rumfordiszing" about 600 fireplaces in a fifteen year period. At first, like you, I cast my own throats and smoke chambers but I found that the components made to my design by Superior Clay were not all that much more expensive and they saved at least a day of construction and so were faster and cheaper than me doing it myself. Please keep in touch. I'd love to hear more about your Rumford project. Best, Jim Buckley

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