Want to retain more heat from traditional fire place.

[Rusty99]

I have a traditional style fire place. The type with brick chimney and mantle. I estimate that 80% of the heat from my fire is going up and out the chimney while not heating the room efficiently. I don't rely on the fire to heat the entire house, but feel I'm defeating the purpose of having a fire if I'm losing most of it out the chimney. My goal is to be able to have the living room really hot as a result of the fire place.

I have glass door with a mesh metal curtain on the opening into the house to stops sparks on the carpet... I usually keep this open unless there are tons of sparks, as it prevents even more heat from entering the room.

Can anyone recommend a fan type device that might draw more heat out into the living room? It gets super cold here in winter (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Sure is nice to have a roaring fire when it freezing outside.

Suggestions/comments please.

Cheers
Russ :monkey:

 

[husky455rancher]

i have a fireplace aswell and im not sure theres alot you can do. i really like the fireplace too. i ended up going to a fireplace insert and i tell you thats the best money i ever spent. i cannot tell you how much more heat and how much longer the wood lasts. i heat the house 100% with it, this will be my 3rd winter with it. when i got it i actually financed it and even still id do it again in a second.

 

[NDtreehugger]

You need to think bigger & thicker tubing the bigger and thicker the better my brother built one from 5"x1/4 tubing the thing wood blow soom nice heat


http://www.northlineexpress.com/searchresult.asp

 

[buildmyown]

My living room is 20X30 with 20 feet of glass on one end and 14 foot ceilings kinda hard and expensive to heat. This room is a add on so the woodstove doesnt really do much for it. Last year I bought one of those fireplace grate heaters found one new on craigslist for short money. Took awhile to get the setup righ tbut now that I have it down it does a great job and I dont use nearly as much wood. This is my procedure I get home around 4PM. I will turn the heat up in the living room just to take the chill off get a big fire going in the fireplace once the fire burns down a little about an hour I close the damper down half way and close the doors turn the blower from the grate heater on with a good bed of coals I can maintain the room at 70 for about 2-3 hours depending on how cold it is. I usally have to throw a couple of logs on at that point. Using about 7 or 8 good size logs I can keep the room at 70 from 4-11Pm.

Here is a pic of what im talking about.

 

[Soilarch]

Don't know what you have in mind. But growing up dad always had a blower/contraption like several have suggested. Always said a fireplace was useless without one. Around jr. high age we got a in-fireplace woodstove. Don't know what they run price wise but it was pretty simple. Drop it in and go. Getting the facing right so that it "looked good" was the hardest part.

Stove had 3 thick pieces of glass in the door. Even as a kid I was pleased to find out you could still watch and hear the fire just like an open fire!

 

[woodguy105]

Buy a woodstove insert (with glass front). You'll love the look and the warmth.

 

[Scootermsp]

Fireback

I put a cast iron fireback in my fireplace last year and it makes a big difference without costing much and it does not change the look of the fireplace. As a bonus it also protects the masonry from the fire. This is where I bought mine from, they had the best prices and shipping was free. http://www.fireplacemall.com/Fireba...acks__for/fireback__plain_firebacks__for.html

 

[Rusty99]

wow, alot of great ideas, so I have the choice between.

1. cast iron fire back - to reflect heat off back wall

2. woodstove insert- not sure how this helps, don't think I really understand how it will retain heat and project it into the room?

3. grate heater/tubular blower

All great ideas, just not sure whats the best method for the price. I would like to know more about the fireplace insert, don't see how it will project heat into the room?

keep the comments coming:monkey:

 

[Brushwacker]

i have a fireplace aswell and im not sure theres alot you can do. i really like the fireplace too. i ended up going to a fireplace insert and i tell you thats the best money i ever spent. i cannot tell you how much more heat and how much longer the wood lasts. i heat the house 100% with it, this will be my 3rd winter with it. when i got it i actually financed it and even still id do it again in a second.

=+1 about the same for me. Using my fire place saved little to none on propane here. Put in the woodstove insert and quit fixing the old propane furnace about 5 years ago.
I used to sell firewood to an elderly lady that used nothing but the fireplace in a small fairly well insulated house. She would let the flames burn completely out stirring the coals several times, when everything was red with no flames she would close the chimney dampener completely to hold all that heat in overnight. She said as long as the flames where done burning and all the wood was red coals smoke was not a problem. I watched her do it and done it myself but it was not enough heat for my house in the cold months.
Another freind of mine just uses a fireplace and sometimes lights a cook stove. When I stay overnight in the winter in front of the fireplace is usually the only warm spot. They use electric blankets at night.

 

[A. Stanton]

Rusty,
Buy one of these--Pacifice Engery insert. Heats to 2,000 sq ft and made right there in Canada. Burning wood part time, I reduced my oil consumption by half.

 

[Mike Van]

I did the stove in the fireplace deal for years, it worked fine. 6" pipe off the back of the stove, you have to take the damper plate out of the fireplace. The pipe has to go up into the chimney far enough to get by the smokeshelf. I made up 2 steel plates to go on either side of the pipe. Pain in the :censored: to clean the chimney though.

 

[Rusty99]

So I've been giving this alot of thought. I'm starting to come around to the idea of a fireplace insert but shocked at home much they cost. I guess I'll save lots of $ on natural gas bills. I have a large 2800 sq ft house, and from what I've been reading the radiant heat of the insert would just flow around the house. I find this hard to believe that a bedroom on the upper floor on the otherside of the house will be warmed by the fire. Perhaps I've got the wrong idea? I figure just the room and immediate vicinity of the fireplace insert would on get warm?

How useful would a cast iron fireback to reflect the heat off the back wall be? I'm guessing not much of an improvement?

looking forward to your comments

Does anyone have picture they can post of how there own personal fireplace insert or stove looks?

 

[mga]

So I've been giving this alot of thought. I'm starting to come around to the idea of a fireplace insert but shocked at home much they cost. I guess I'll save lots of $ on natural gas bills. I have a large 2800 sq ft house, and from what I've been reading the radiant heat of the insert would just flow around the house. I find this hard to believe that a bedroom on the upper floor on the otherside of the house will be warmed by the fire. Perhaps I've got the wrong idea? I figure just the room and immediate vicinity of the fireplace insert would on get warm?

How useful would a cast iron fireback to reflect the heat off the back wall be? I'm guessing not much of an improvement?

looking forward to your comments

Does anyone have picture they can post of how there own personal fireplace insert or stove looks?

1. you are not going to comfortably heat a 2800 sq. ft. house with a basic fireplace unless it was originally designed as a heat source. most fireplaces in new homes are just "fashion".

2. there is no "cheap" way out of it. the better the unit, the higher the costs.

3. much depends on how your house was built, how well it's insulated, what shape your house is, etc etc etc.

 

[Marc]

I have a large 2800 sq ft house, and from what I've been reading the radiant heat of the insert would just flow around the house. I find this hard to believe that a bedroom on the upper floor on the otherside of the house will be warmed by the fire.

You read wrong. Radiant heat doesn't flow anywhere. Radiation can only move in a straight line through space, unless bent by a gravitational field, reflected by a surface, or scattered (or a combination thereof)

Convective currents will be mostly responsible for heating rooms distant from the heat source, so the heat distribution to the rest of the house really depends, like mga pointed out, on a number of factors.

 

[logbutcher]

An insert or a free standing wood stove sitting in the opening are the best answers to a wood wasting fireplace.

Make the step up to 70%+ efficiency!

+1 ...and more. That's the ONLY answer for effective heating.

Foreget the grate devices or other things, they only add too little to a fireplace. If you feel so negative about this advice for a stove as insert--the only way to get heat from an open fireplace-- then look up efficient fireplaces. One that has been around since the 1700's is the Rumford Fireplace. It is shallow at the base, close to 2/3 of a "normal" fireplace, that slants steeply upward toward the throat. It is supposed to throw more of the heat out rather than drafted out the chimney. I've seen a neat mason's reconstruction of a large rectangular opening into a Rumford style; it is still an open fire , but does give out more of the heat into the room.

Get a stove.

 

[mga]

My living room is 20X30 with 20 feet of glass on one end and 14 foot ceilings kinda hard and expensive to heat. This room is a add on so the woodstove doesnt really do much for it. Last year I bought one of those fireplace grate heaters found one new on craigslist for short money. Took awhile to get the setup righ tbut now that I have it down it does a great job and I dont use nearly as much wood. This is my procedure I get home around 4PM. I will turn the heat up in the living room just to take the chill off get a big fire going in the fireplace once the fire burns down a little about an hour I close the damper down half way and close the doors turn the blower from the grate heater on with a good bed of coals I can maintain the room at 70 for about 2-3 hours depending on how cold it is. I usally have to throw a couple of logs on at that point. Using about 7 or 8 good size logs I can keep the room at 70 from 4-11Pm.

Here is a pic of what im talking about.

those things do put alot of heat out. i've used one for years with mine.

 

[coppermouse]

Wood stove insert

 

[strongback]

A fireplace insert with a couple of well placed fans throughout the house to aid in convection will heat most of your house very well. If you cover your windows with plastic sheeting (sold by 3m and frost king or just get some generic plastic sheeting with some double sided tape) to reduce drafts you would be pleasantly suprised at how warm your house can be made with "just" a quality fireplace insert.

 

[ultimate buzz]

fireplace insert research

Rusty, every question that you can think of has probably been covered over at www.**********. There is information on conventional woodburning stoves,fireplace inserts that burn either pellets or standard firewood.There is a section on reviews of different stoves by people who have purchased and used them. And numerous posts on application and installation.Check it out,and don't forget to use the search engine to see if specific questions have already been presented. An amazing amount of information specific to heating. -ken

 

[mga]

Rusty, every question that you can think of has probably been covered over at www.**********. There is information on conventional woodburning stoves,fireplace inserts that burn either pellets or standard firewood.There is a section on reviews of different stoves by people who have purchased and used them. And numerous posts on application and installation.Check it out,and don't forget to use the search engine to see if specific questions have already been presented. An amazing amount of information specific to heating. -ken

i was just there looking around and saw this ad:



Firewood Fuel Prices
Firewood prices - Michigan - by: El Dia Octavo on 09/24/2008 at 02:40 PM
Price: 90.00 per cord at Private -North Branch, MI United States
Comments: Ninety dollars per full cord picked up. Split, seasoned, all hardwoods. Good stuff. Twenty-one to twenty-four inch pieces.

90 bucks a CORD??? split and seasoned hardwoods no less