Hi, I'm going to give a lot of facts because I don't know what's relevant. Any help you can give on my questions would be much appreciated.

I've got a 50+ year old ranch that we've been in for 15+ years. We've never used the fireplace (long story) but the previous owners did. A few years ago we had the chimney cleaned and a chimney cap put on. Now we're doing lots of renovations and would like to be able to use the fireplace.

I just had someone in from a well recommended chimney sweep company and asked what stands between me and a usable fireplace. He looked up the chimney, said the damper (metal, in the bottom of the chimney, definitely original to the house) isn't sealing completely because the house has settled and it's no longer perfectly in alignment. (This seems reasonable to me, but what do I know?) There's also some flaking coming from inside the chimney. He recommends a new damper at the top of the chimney, under the cap. He says that's a better choice than installing a new damper in the place where the current one is because with his coupon, the top damper will be $525 (Westchester County, NY - expensive part of the world), while having a mason come in and do what's necessary to install one to replace the current one will be a much more expensive project ($3K-$4K). And I should have it cleaned for $60.

I did a search here and based on the few posts I could find discussing top dampers, it doesn't seem to be a ridiculous idea, but if someone could speak to my facts that would be great.

Also, I asked him about burning duraflames and he doesn't recommend them (which sounds familiar from some reading I did here a few months ago) and prefers a product called Pine Mountain Logs, if I want to use that kind of product. Any thoughts?

If I'm putting in a new damper, do I gain anything by installing glass doors, also or can I just go get an aesthetically pleasing fireplace screen?

Thank you all for your advice.