New York Energy Conservation Code
6/5/14
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Fireplace Door Workaround, 2010
Energy Conservation Construction Code of New York State NYS 2010 Energy Code on Fireplaces
2. Decorative appliances (ANSI Standard Z21.60 gas-log style unit) installed in vented solid fuel fireplaces. 3. Vented decorative gas fireplace appliances (ANSI Standard Z21.50 unit).
State Energy Conservation Construction Code, State of New York, April 1, 1987. (Courtesy Vestal Mfg.) Section 7813.5 AIR LEAKAGE FOR ALL BUILDINGS
. . (d) Residential fireplace units shall have infiltration losses with the damper on the closed position not to exceed 20 cfm. Fireplace units shall be provided with a source of combustion air, ducted from the outdoors, of sufficient quantity to support combustion. This source shall be equipped with a damper capable of being fully closed. . .
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Comments:
6/26/07 Much to our dismay, our Rumford must have a door on it according to New York State. Do you know of any dealers who might have a door that is appropriate for a Rumford? Right now, we are looking at placing a 2" wide metal plate all around the face of the fireplace (beautiful Adirondack granite we got). Needless to say, we are sick about this but we can't get our CofO without it. Many thanks, Matt
Matthew Pearson
To: "Pearson, Matthew \(FID\)"
Matthew,
Sorry to hear that. Two suggestions:
1) Mark Mykins, a Building Inspector for the Town of Wilton in New York State, is working on an exception to installing glass doors based on an older version of the NY Energy Code which allowed "tight-fitting dampers" in lieu of doors. Our email correspondence is below. Maybe you could work together with him.
2) We do have some "visually minimal easily removable" door options for Rumfords on line at http://www.rumford.com/store/doors.html Most of them are frameless so you won't have to install that metal plate around your fireplace opening. I like the first option, Frameless Bi-fold Doors, since you at least get a useful screen after you remove the glass or metal insert panels, or the last option, Bi-fold Metal Doors, which are the least expensive and store nicely in your garage.
Jeannie said you just called but I'll send this off any way. Let us know what you end up doing and if there is anyway we can help.
Best,
Thank you. Please keep me informed. If my information is correct and the "tight-fitting damper" as alternative to glass doors was eliminated a few years ago, you might find it useful to find out who eliminated it and why.
Best,
In the case of our present customer, I am going to suggest that he get hold of our Department of State Regional Rep. and request a variance based on the information you have provided and some of the information I pulled from your website. I agree that a tight fitting damper does more to restrict outside air infiltration than a set of glass doors. Hopefully this will push in the right direction when we adopt new code changes in the future. Thank for your timely response, and I'll let you know what the outcome is and if some type of determination by the state is made.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
Mark,
Thank you for making this extra effort. The various energy and indoor air quality codes requiring fireplace doors are not generally well thought out.
Rumford fireplaces - all open fireplaces for that matter - heat radiantly. Glass blocks nearly all of the radiant heat and most glass doors are anything but air tight because the door manufacturers don't want to incur the liability of bottling up the heat and creating a fire hazard. So the customer who closes the fireplace doors on a dying fire at the end of an evening blocks nearly all of the heat but hardly any of the air - just the opposite of what he intends. See calculations and further discussion at http://www.rumford.com/tech14.html
Last I heard the New York State Energy Code required without exception fireplaces to have "tight-fitting noncombustible fireplace doors to control infiltration losses.." I have that 2003 code on line at http://www.rumford.com/code/energyNY.html New York used to allow "tight-fitting dampers" as an alternative to fireplace doors but that seems to have been changed.
The intent of the New York code is apparently to limit or control the loss of heated room air. The fact that the code does not define "tight-fitting" and the fact that fireplace doors probably don't reduce the air loss but do block nearly all the radiant heat doesn't give us much guidance.
We generally advise our NY customers to install fireplace doors but keep them open when using the fireplace. We offer some "visually minimal" fireplace doors described at http://www.rumford.com/store/doors.html but our customers and we generally agree that fireplace doors are not useful and are a waste of money.
So what do you suggest? I think the alternative in the old NY Energy Code of installing a tight-fitting damper instead of fireplace doors was reasonable.
Best,
Thank You,
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