Fireplace insert VS wood stove

[JUDGE1162]

I have had a Quadra fire wood stove for a little over 4 years and love it, recently my father-in-law got a very pricey natural gas bill and wanted to join the wood heating club, so we went to my local wood stove dealer and they showed us some or the new stoves but then said have you considered an insert for his existing fireplace, I knew very little about inserts other than wood stoves were more efficient or at least could be.

So my question is what are the pros and cons of a fire place insert VS a wood stove?

His house is about 4000 square feet, the stove or insert would be in the living room and provide heat for the first floor about 2,500 square feet the house is on a natural gas boiler presently which would still be used but hopefully much less.

This board was very helpful when I started down the wood heating road with my wood stove, I am sure the board can shed some light oin this as well, since I seem to be getting conflicting info from the web and my local dealers.

Thanks again
Judge

 

[coog]

As a general rule, a large woodstove has a larger capacity than a large insert.I have a large home as well and use a Jotul 600 in front of my hearth.I am able to put a fan behind the stove as well(in the firebox of the fireplace)In my home, at least, the heat disappears pretty quick. I say go with the largest appliance that will fit.

 

[husky455rancher]

i have both. i agree with coog weather it be insert or stove get the biggest firebox you can jam in there. my insert throws a lot of heat and is a wood miser it just heats my living area. the stove in the cellar can heat my cellar and my living area more comfortable than the insert can. that being said i think the insert is gonna only be used for a nice ambiance this year or unless i have to leave the house for a long time then ill pack em both full before i leave.

 

[Rookie1]

As already stated insert will have smaller firebox. My FIL has Sierra insert and I have a Sierra freestanding woodburner. Both made by the same company and both well built but his fire box is half the size as mine. When we were living with him I would cram that thing as full as I could and it would be cold in the morning. I fill mine and its still warm in the morning. Nothing wrong with them,they are just limited on firebox size.

 

[Mike Van]

Does an insert depend on a fan to 'get the heat out' ? If so, I'd ask some of the people in the icestorm wake how good they work when the power's out for 10 days. A stove on the other hand, will work just fine with no fan.

 

[coog]

That's a good point,Mike.My Jotul dealer told me that a lot of the insert users depend on the fan to keep the mantle above from getting too hot.During power outtages he has had to tell them to put aluminum foil under the mantle as a shield.Something to consider.

I like the way my stove serves as a center to my home; the kids do their homework there while my wife and I read.But in a big house, if this isn't an important thing for you, a wood furnace or boiler is probably a better way to go.I think this is even more true in a big house.I keep my stove around 400 degrees, and it is only in the mid sixties in the room.The house is very open, and much of the heat migrates up the open stairwell.It does serve to keep the two furnaces off, as they are set at sixty.There is a reason these old houses had multiple chimneys.

 

[dingeryote]

Does an insert depend on a fan to 'get the heat out' ? If so, I'd ask some of the people in the icestorm wake how good they work when the power's out for 10 days. A stove on the other hand, will work just fine with no fan.

Yep, I run a Quadrafire Fireplace for heat. No electricity, and all ya have is radiant heat.

To cure that, Instead of hardwiring the fans, I ran power to an outlet, and mounted a 800CCA trolling motor battery next to the outlet.
Connected to the Battery is an Inverter, and a Battery tender.

I can get almost a day on the Battery, but always get the Gennie connected to the tractor and hooked up in about an hour anyway.

A bit of fussing in an outage, but the thing heats 2,500+sq.ft. and is much more efficient than just radiant.

Outside combustion air is another benefit, as it is possible to create positive pressure in the house and not draw the cold in.

If it wasn't for the itty bitty fireboxes in the inserts, they would be the way to go IMO.

It sucks that the cost of tearing out the old, plus the cost of new, negates the Hybrid fireplace advantages except on new construction.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[Rookie1]

My FIL doesnt have a fan. Must be an older one. It does have a sheetmetal deflector to keep heat off mantel.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Wood Stove Kicks Out More Heat

The insert will not produce the heat in the room that a free-standing woodstove will, primarily for two reasons:

(1) The back of the insert is in the chimney, and that will send lots of heat up the chimney and not in the house.

(2) The stove pipe radiates a bunch of heat also. The insert has no stovepipe inside the house.

I have an insert stove that can be converted to a free-standing unit, but I have never done it.

 

[A. Stanton]

I've got an insert. It's an easier install if you already have a fireplace. It's a Pacific Energy and their biggest inserts and stoves are called the Summit and they heat 3,000 sq ft. Another down side to the insert, is having to shovel the ashes out of the fire box. You got to let the fire cool a little to do this maintenance. I guess the stoves have ash pans, you can keep rockin and rollin.

 

[husky455rancher]

my biggest pet peeve on the insert is shoveling the ashes. mines in the living room and no matter how careful iam the crap flys everywhere. i love the ashpan in the sove in the cellar.

 

[Richard_]

I've got an insert. It's an easier install if you already have a fireplace. It's a Pacific Energy and their biggest inserts and stoves are called the Summit and they heat 3,000 sq ft. Another down side to the insert, is having to shovel the ashes out of the fire box. You got to let the fire cool a little to do this maintenance. I guess the stoves have ash pans, you can keep rockin and rollin.

I have one as well , it's the Pacific model insert , they seem to have the biggest firebox for an insert , plus the depth of the fire box is a huge bonus , no worries of your fire rolling out on refueling

 

[coog]

I just now thought of another bonus to a (my) woodstove.It loads from the side as well as from the front.Side or top-loaders are easier to load cleanly,IMO.

 

[lobsta1]

my biggest pet peeve on the insert is shoveling the ashes. mines in the living room and no matter how careful iam the crap flys everywhere. i love the ashpan in the sove in the cellar.

The ASH PAN works well. I have a small stove, so I got the 8" model. There is also a 12" model.
Al

http://www.northlineexpress.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5AT-ASHTRAP8

 

[greengiant]

I've been using a Fireplace Extraordinaire insert for 95% of my heat for 4 years now. I heat the first floor of a ranch from one end with it. When we get into the single digits it can be hard to heat just this first floor of around 1200 sq ft. Even though I added insulation in the attic, and ran an insulated duct with an inline fan to the other end of the house to circulate the air, it can still get mighty cold in the bedrooms by morning. I think it has a lot to do with 1961 2x4 wall insulation, and 48 year old windows. I still spent less to have the insert put in than I would have on new windows and I have a free wood source (not that my back has a price tag though ). If I planned to stay in this house for 5 or more years, I think I would put a regular woodstove in the middle of the basement. From what I can tell, I have to work a lot harder to keep this place warm than any friends with regular wood stoves.

Mine does have a fan. Without a fan it would be pretty useless. The box is pretty small, so it is cold by morning, so I feed it 1-2X on 0 degree nights if I want to have it mid 60'sin the morning. Front 20 degrees up overnight, I can just load it before bed, and have a few coals in the morning. It really depends on the insulation in the place.

If I run the variable speed blower too fast, it cools the box quick, thus cooling your fire, and you get a lot of coals that are still red underneath and hot, but do not put a lot of heat into the blower cavity . I took an old metal file drawer box and attached a handle to it, and my large mulching shovel fits inside the box. I then can scoop hot ashes out of the stove and slide the shovel in the box and carry it outside. This leaves no chance of a hot coal dropping in the house, and avoids dumping small shovels of ashes into a bucket. Plus if I don't empty out ashes hot (and this is only in dead cold weather), I can't fit any more wood to keep it burning hot. This is because as mentioned before, the firebox is small. Also, smaller firebox=smaller sized wood=more splitting.

Anyone else have any tricks for heating inefficient living space with an insert like this??

In our dream house (hopefully we find one in the next couple years), I'd like to have a regular stove in the basement, and take this insert and have in a living room or something. I would plan to primarily heat with the basement one, and then when it got really cold, or we have company over, I would use the insert, because it is really aesthetically nice to have.

I think also, you can get and install a regular stove cheaper than putting a good insert in an existing fireplace, to heat the same space. Maybe someone else can shed light on that.

One last thing, and I will quit babbling. We have this insert in our living room where we watch TV. The fan can definitely be annoying if you are hard of hearing. But, what I am finally realizing, is that sometimes, you can get the same amount of heat by running the blower speed lower, and have a hotter fire. I'm still learning though. GOOD LUCK!

 

[day52]

Keep doing your homework. Check some other sites such as **********. There are inserts out there that can keep up with a lot of stoves. Size usually matters, but even in the old days a little Jotul or other European stoves could keeo up with big ones like an Earthstove. If you read the ratings, you'll find that there is a lot of difference between competing makes and models of a similar size. Then of course there is the looks and the amount of room a stove takes up vs. an insert. All of that said, I would guess that about 75% of the time you will get more heat out of a stove...and that would be important in a big house. I doubt that any stove or insert would supply all the heat for 2500 sq. ft., but it would certainly help--and that is what you are looking for.

 

[JUDGE1162]

Thanks for all the input, this SIte Rocks I can always count on some great replies.

Now on the Install, it looks like I can place a stove infront of the fire place and run the vent pipe into the fireplace chimney is this right? (this is one of the topics I seem to be getting conflicting info).

I guess one of the big selling point of the insert was it would be much cheaper to install and still keep the look of the fireplace.

As much as I would love an OWB, my FIL live in a city which would not approve an OWB, so the insert is a way around the permitting issue.

Thanks again for all the replies

 

[Edmccabe]

I have a Jotul 550 insert in a very large stone fireplace. The firebox is 24" X 14". I have found that it runs more efficiently and can handle more wood when I insert 12" chunks endwise instead of using longer pieces laterally.

One of the fringe benefits of an insert that hasn't been mentioned is the heat stored by, and radiated from, the stone fireplace itself.

My fireplace stands in the center of a large room with vaulted ceiling.

The upper sections and back side of the fireplace maintain 90 degree temperature while the insert is running and the entire bulk of the stone structure is well over 70 degrees and will stay warm a full day after the fire goes out. Heat that rises to the ceiling above the fireplace is in the mid 80 degree range and enters the cold air inlet for my hot air system and is circulated through the house thermally.

I find the system to be quite efficient and well worth the effort to keep it going 24/7.

Cleanout is the only irritation - needs to be done about every 10 days.

When installing my unit I decided not to use the galvanized block off plate which came with the installation kit - a 6' length of 6" stainless flexpipe and the block off plate and instead used the 48" X 10" cast iron damper above the fireplace which fit well and was in very good condition despite being 40 years old. I used the oval hole in the sheet metal plate as a template and drilled & ground out a similar hole in the damper. I squashed about 18" of one end of the flexpipe & inserted it throu the top of the damper and bolted it tightly in place. I was able to pull the flexpipe into position on the flange on the top of the Jotul and screwed it in place. Then sealed the flex pipe to the damper with hightemp (1000 degree) sealer.

I brought power to the blower up through the cleanout opening from the cellar and encased it in stainless conduit.

Readings with a laser temp gun show the normal operating temperature of the stainless flexpipe at 150 - 160 degrees when the fire is running hot at around 500 degrees and the output air is close to around 180.

As my chimney has a tile flue of the allowed size I saw no need to fun a pipe all the way up the chimney. I ran a wood furnace with far more output than this one for over 10 years with no problem an a past home.

Ed

 

[coog]

Thanks for all the input, this SIte Rocks I can always count on some great replies.

Now on the Install, it looks like I can place a stove infront of the fire place and run the vent pipe into the fireplace chimney is this right? (this is one of the topics I seem to be getting conflicting info).

I guess one of the big selling point of the insert was it would be much cheaper to install and still keep the look of the fireplace.

As much as I would love an OWB, my FIL live in a city which would not approve an OWB, so the insert is a way around the permitting issue.

Thanks again for all the replies

You will need to purchase enough flex liner to get to the top of the chimney, not just into the chimney with either the insert or the stove.The only added expense of the stove is if you needed to extend the hearth.