My husband and I just purchased a 95 year old Dutch Colonial with an old brick stack now being used to exhaust the gas furnace. The brick is exposed in one of the upstairs bedrooms which currently belongs to our oldest son who is disabled with autism. We are concerned for safety with both our two year old son and our oldest who is six. We are trying to cover the brick with something to prevent injury in case of a fall. We tried industrial Velcro attached to the brick and to thick yoga mat material but the adhesive on the velcro came off within 24 hours as the brick heated and cooled. What can we cover the brick with? It's two sides of the exhaust stack, each side is roughly six foot high and sixteen inches from corner to where it meets the wall. [We only need half the height covered]
Is there something that is safe to put over the warming brick that could pad it? Furthermore, is there a way to insulate it so that it stops overheating our son's room with extra radiant heat? Our top priority here is safety padding, but the heat barrier would be a plus.
Safety cover for exposed brick exhaust inside a bedroom
bricksafety
Related Topic
- Walls – How to cover up this partially exposed brick
- Walls – How to finish the broken edge of the exposed brick wall
- Move or remove a downspout inside brick wall
- Walls – Insulating inside on an exterior brick wall
- Preventing condensation on the inside of an exposed structural exterior brick wall
- Respirator or mask for brick (crystalline silica) and mold
Best Answer
For a longer term solution it might be worth considering two investigations.
Look at building out the wall around the exposed brick in the room. This could be built to sit a couple of inches (4 - 5 cm) away from the brick to create a dead air space behind the wall to isolate the room from the temperature variations of the bricks. Such wall structure with its "studs", however that is configured, offers a lot more options for installing safety measures.
Look into see if it would be possible to retrofit the chimney with an inserted double or triple wall stainless steel flue liner. The easiest case is one that would fit within the existing flue of the brick chimney. More invasive rework involves removing the brick chimney down to some level and replacing the stack with the rigid style multi-wall stainless steel stack that is supported with a new wood structure then sheathed appropriately for interior or exterior surfaces.