Expert: James Ball - 11/21/2009

Question
James,  we recently removed a wood=burning insert from our masonry FP.  Surpise, surprise!  There's no damper.  FP was built in 1985 and apparently has always had the insert in there as the brick in the smoke chamber is clean as if new.  We have another FP on 2nd. story directly above and each has it's own flue.  The FP in question angles over to it's flue and the corbelling is a bit severe.  Our sweep says that this needs to be parged to smooth it out to keep creasote from collecting in all those nitches and steps plus the holes in the centers of the bricks.
   Normal refractory cement would crack and fall off at the thickness required. (I've been studying)  What about one of these products.. Smoketite, or thermo crete and Dynacote(NASA uses that stuff).  What would you suggest?  

Answer
Hell Tim, they make a couple of products, Chamber Tech, and Smoke Tite I use Smoke Tite and love it, it is shot up with a compressor and fills in small and big holes (we fill big holes with insulation first and spray over it.
I have attached a few pictures