A CRITICAL LOOK AT MY MOTHER'S HOUSE

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Mr. Barden also suggested that the chimney's position subjects the heater to too much stress from the weight of the masonry bearing down from above. Our chimney is directly above the area in the loading end where that crack has developed, so he may well have pinpointed the cause of that difficulty, as well. In his lengthy commentary, the masonry-heater expert also expressed concern over our use of a flue tile to cap the heat exchange runs. He fears that the tile will eventually break under the thermal stress and weight ... though we haven't had that problem yet.

On the brighter side, the Russian fireplace performs beyond our expectations. It fires very easily and radiates a strong, even heat for many hours after the fire has died away. There's been almost no creosote accumulation (actually, the material that does build up is more in the nature of soot), and the heater doesn't seem to consume much wood, either!

HARD-WON WISDOM

Some of the costs we incurred could have been reduced by better planning and/or ordering. For example, we purchased 15,900 costly highmanganese exterior bricks, but used only 13,000. That's an excess expenditure of about $350 ... though we have the opportunity of putting them to use on other projects. (Our best theory about why the order was so far off is that the estimator forgot to allow for the doors and windows in the front wall.)

We also wasted about 3,000 of the bricks when the decision was made to shorten the knee wall at the front of the sod roof. The materials were ruined in knocking the wall down, and there was further expense in recapping the shorter wall and adding a safety railing.

Another approach that we took didn't cost much money, but can't be recommended in the long run. When installing glazing in the center section of the second-story windows, we used a double layer of fiberglass-reinforced plastic on handmade frames. Unfortunately, repeated attempts to keep the plastic from buckling and to remove condensation have been unsuccessful. We used fiberglass because it's inexpensive and translucent (which cuts down glare inside the house), but we've since decided that it would be wise to go ahead and install translucent glass instead.

One structural aspect of the building has proved to be unsatisfactory, as well. The headers above the sliding glass doors in the brick wall are made from sections of angle iron welded back to back. For the standard , width doors the 1/7" X 2" metal has been adequate ... but over one exceptionally wide door, the angle iron has sagged somewhat, as a result of the weight of the wall and roof above. This span is approximately eight feet ... and it obviously would be advisable to use heavier material to form the header for this entrance.

In our case, the fact that the beams running lengthwise in the building aren't tied together (the section in the west stairwell was cut away to provide headroom) isn't a great concern ... since the walls are plenty strong enough to stand up on their own. If the walls were slightly less substantial, however, the additional support of a continuous lengthwise beam might be desirable.

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