fireplace blower repair

my fireplace has this exact setup(hotlinked and ribbed for her pleasure)

it's an old sears blower setup. when we moved in the motor was bad and after a year of searching i found one on ebay and replaced it. now, from years of moisture and fires the entire part that goes inside the firebox itself is rusted out. it was made from sheetmetal so i'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. the mice have made quite a home inside it as well.

so i have the entire unit out. the initial plan is to rebuild it pretty much the same as it is, except make it out of stronger material. by stronger i mean make the ends out of 2x4 .125 tube and the tubes out of 1 5/8 roll cage bars, so that it should have very little chance to rot out. i also have some expanded metal to make a front grate from to prevent future mouse intrusion.

would you do anything differently? more tubes? tubes over the fire versus under?

my damper is rusted out as well leading to rain intrusion, so i plan to remove the rusty unit and install a cap with a built in damper.

postscript, my shop vac just started squeaking so i may have sucked up the mouse.

since nobody had insight - quick and dirty build thread time:

old removed:

new vs old

new tube for the front was 1/2" taller than old, so had to neck down the inlet for the blower motor to slip over

the part i like the most

in place

ugly doors back on

great success!

it puts out quite a bit of heat, successful test run. phase 2 of get ready for winter is new 3 ton heat pump unit to replace my 25+ year old air conditioner.

Ours is way fancy, with a blowermotor pulling through a filter outside the house that blows into the house, and another set of ducts that pull outside air for combustion. No need for stupid baseboard heaters since 2009. looks to me like you done yours right!

Nice metal work!

Based on what you built, it's probably good that you got no insights! Nice work.

thanks gents. i was very glad to have a plasma cutter and a bunch of scraps laying around. the 1x4 was from a treadmill i picked up in the trash, the 2x4 was the cutoffs from the frame of my gasser, and the tubes were parts of a roll cage of an old circle track car i cut up.