We have been in our house 5 years and have never been able to get a fire to stay burning in the fireplace.every thing is clean what I don't see is a damper don't know if it really matters that it's not there.what do I do

Obviously the damper is causing your fire to continually go out. Have a professional fireplace cleaner look at your chimney as well and check out the damper for you. Your chimney may need cleaned as well as there could very well be a build up somewhere keeping the air from properly flowing.

That's strange having no damper. I build fireplaces and there are basically two methods of controlling the damper. One is a knob through the fireplace and the other is you use a poker and reach up in it to adjust the damper. Now on a remote possibility that someone has over flipped the damper into the smoke shelf, reach up inside the fireplace past the damper and reach back to see if the damper is laying on the smoke shelf loose. If not measure the damper housing and go th a masonry supply house and try to get one. They are fairly standard. Now lets address the not burning part. It should burn with out a damper lid not as well or efficient but it will burn. Look at the chimney flue coming out of the chimney. It should be a 8x11 I.D. or 9x13 O.D. The next size up would be a 11 x11 Id or 12x12 OD. Now get those dimensions and multiply those numbers. Now measure the finished opening on the fireplace. That opening can't be more than 10 times the opening in the flue size in the chimney. Now lets check the finish height of the fireplace opening in relation of the damper. That finish top opening in the fireplace should be no more or no less then 6" to 7" inches down from the damper base/where the damper sits. If it's a standard 36' fireplace the finish opening should be 33 to 34 wide and about 29"high.
If somehow you could get me pictures of the flue and is it 2' above any object 10' in radius. Also a picture of the damper looking up in the fireplace inside throat. I need the depth of the firebox and the back inside width of the fireplace. I'm a dying dinosaur and a mason for 32 years and I may be able to help here. Fireplaces are very rarely built anymore and that trade is getting lost. So If you can post some pics. It would help a lot. If the chimney is clogged still get back and when you get a damper I can instruct you on the proper way to tune it in to the size of fire you have and how to get the most heat gain from that. A fireplace will burn without a damper but the damper helps in the roll of the smoke shelf behind it and then the throat above the damper is rolling the hot air faster. The hot smoke rolls up the back of the fireplace and hits the damper and it actually rolls back down in the smoke shelf and then it rolls out of that and up the flue. The myth is the smoke goes straight up the fireplace chimney.

Signed 21 Boat

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