What Type of Top Damper is Best?

That’s easy. One that won’t break and always works well all of the time. I only install products that virtually never break and work well. It’s good business, reflects well on me, and I almost never have to go back to fix something unnecessarily. Long warranties do not mean products work well! The two are not synonymous! Some dampers freeze up from corrosion, ice, sticky gaskets, and poor hinge design and placement regardless of their warranty. Imagine designing a damper’s hinges directly in the path of creosote buildup or having a pan shaped top damper trapping freezing rain, locking the damper shut. Worse yet, imagine me climbing across your roof when it’s covered with ice just to chip more ice off your frozen top damper! I’ve done it!

Now imagine a damper that works great every time, no matter what. The best news is that such dampers are no more expensive, no harder to install and have comparable warranties (often lifetime – as long as you own your home). What types of dampers are these? Lock Tops, Yucco, RMR, Lymance Cap Dampers and most cap dampers in general.

Chimilator: Effective but Unsightly

Chimilator works well and is the only one that has a mechanism to hold the damper in various positions but I steer away from them. They require a handle extension because they have springs that very difficult to pull shut against. The handle is some sort of composite or plastic material and is so long it often sticks out of the fireplace and is detachable so as to be stored out of the fire’s heat (so it can get lost.) The damper control is also the largest and most unsightly mechanism I’ve ever seen. In short, it a works well, but is ugly and inconvenient and provides a feature that is often not used because dampers usually need to be fully open to vent properly.

Which ones freeze up or stick?

Lymance originals freeze up and leak a tiny bit, Pop tops used to freeze up fron creosote or corrossion so bad I replaced a bunch and I’m not sure they even exist any more, and my ex-favorite, the energy top that I love for it’s hollow, refrigerator like gasket, I’m sad to report seems to stick shut far too often. It seems to have something to do with the gasket itself.

What is a cap damper?

A cap damper or a top damper combo is a top damper that has a rain cap and animal guard/fly ash arrestor connected to it. Essentially, the damper is inside of a larger rain cap. The default position of all top dampers I’ve used is open. This means if your damper handle comes loose the top damper pops up and is opened. That’s what you want. Energy loss is better than a house full of smoke!

Who should I have install my damper?

Though it’s not difficult, I recommend a chimney technician. If you have lots of ladder and roof climbing experience you might be able to handle it yourself. Read the instructions. Hammer drills are fare easier to drill through brick with to set the handle brackets in place and most people want the bracket high up on the wall of the fireplace to make it less visible. You can also paint it with high temp black to make it less apparent. Before installing the handle bracket, try operating the damper pulling down the damper cable from the far left and far right sides. Mount the bracket on the side that’s easier to operate the damper from or the side that the cable rests against when you let it hang freely. If you mount the handle bracket too far forward you will feel added friction as the cable will rub the fireplace throat and if you mount the bracket too far back you will feel friction or the handle will be difficult to reach. Once you read the instructions for the particular damper you’ve selected and examined the parts, hopefully these tips will be easier to follow. If you try to drill a hole through your throat damper frame to run a top damper cable through it, you must place it far enough away from the damper plate to prevent the cable from interfering with the plate’s movements and you should drill the hole at an angle, following the direction of the cable, to reduce friction and lastly, beware that sometimes cement on top of the damper frame may impede your drilling and in some cases make drilling unfeasible. If the latter is the case, remove the damper plate and store it or discard it or abandon the top damper installation and stick with your throat damper………Good luck!