How many on here still use a Fireplace ?

[Jeremy102579]

We all know Fireplaces of all sorts suck at putting out heat into living areas compared to Stoves, Boilers, etc.

But I was just wondering how many of you guys on here still burn wood in them ?

 

[BillNole]

We all know Fireplaces of all sorts suck at putting out heat into living areas compared to Stoves, Boilers, etc.

But I was just wondering how many of you guys on here still burn wood in them ?

Pretty much everyday throughout the season! To top it off, ours is open with no doors too; just s screen.

I've measured throughout the house to determine that it's affect on the rest of the house is minimal, while it can make the living room where it's located quite toasty and it does reduce the frequency of the furnace kicking in. I know I'm sending more heat up the chimney than into the house, but we enjoy it and I'm not willing to spend what it would cost to replace it with one with doors and/or a blower to keep more of it in the house.

I'd love to have an OWB and a wood stove in the basement, but the cost is just more than I'm willing to spend for them and it might then become more of a chore than the pleasure it is now. I get my wood for free by scrounging on CL and word of mouth. I burn a couple of full cords a year most years and gathering is just a hobby and not a passion or job for me.

I have a decent saw and a couple of mauls and a Fiskars X27. I just bought an old splitter last year as I'm getting older and have to be careful, but my son started helping last year and actually prefers the 6-lb maul to the splitter or the Fiskars I bought for him. Takes after his Dad with this!

I burn because I can and I enjoy it all. When I no longer do, well... I won't do it any longer!

 

[H-Ranch]

We do just for the ambiance and feeling of sitting by a fire. I can't imagine having a gas fireplace which seems to kind of defeat the purpose to me. It may help maintain the heat in the house on a sunny day that's above freezing if I run the blower on the homemade grate. I have a couple of stacks of nicer looking wood that is reserved for the fireplace - all the ugly stuff goes in the OWB.

 

[jmurray]

Our current house we heat with a wood stove, can keep house very warm if we want. The house we are remodeling to move into has a woodburning fireplace, I have ran it a few times to see what the heat was like, I was sad to see it will only heat the living room. We don't use any other source than wood to heat, so we have decided on a wood stove in the basement at the opposite end of the house from the fireplace. The cost for the wood stove is less than two months of gas heat I bought both of ours after wood buring season at the farm store about 40% off regular price.

I agree with you, I wont put a blower system with doors on our fireplace either, it kind of defeats the purpose and appeal of having a structrual fireplace.

 

[flashhole]

Mine closes up like a stove and has a blower system. It puts out a lot of heat and I get benefit for all 6 rooms on the main floor. The dog likes it too.

 

[pennsywoodburnr]

My wife and I have been using ours for years now. The house is small, like less than 800 sq feet, and it was primarily built to be a vacation/weekend getaway type of place, so there's really not a whole lot of house to heat up. That being said, even when we had those brutal cold spells for a couple weeks there we were able to keep the house somewhere between 69-74 degrees. Not bad considering we saw highs in the low single digits during the day. The back of the house was a little cooler obviously, but not by much, maybe 8-10 degrees, tops.

 

[bigdaddy3]

Have been burning mine for over 30 years, I have a 2500' house and it will keep the front part as hot as you can stand but as far as the back part of the house if you leave all of the doors open it won't heat it but it will makr the central air run alot less.

 

[john taliaferro]

We burn a fireplace with grate that dumps into the kitchen and glass doors . Its a wonderful harth to sit for a min when comming in from outside

 

[ReggieT]

Have been burning mine for over 30 years, I have a 2500' house and it will keep the front part as hot as you can stand but as far as the back part of the house if you leave all of the doors open it won't heat it but it will make the central air run a lot less.

Same here bigdaddy. I doubt if I'll ever go with anything else...especially in our short winters. I'm well versed in fireplace shortcomings, yet the atmosphere/ambiance is what we enjoy and relish.
I upgraded to a finer mesh screen for all the hedge & black locust I burn, but the wife and kids, grands love the firepalce...we call it "Feeding the Pig!".

 

[Dobbs]

I do, I have a Kozy Heat fireplace we heat 3200 sq feet. Sure there are cool spots.
But it does pretty good. Have heated with it since the house was built 11years.
We run the furnace fan to move the air.
We burn less than 250 gal. Of propane 95% goes to the water heater or garage
heater
Dave

 

[CTYank]

My little stove has a window that's almost as large as to whole front of the stove. And it doesn't suck immense amounts of heated air up the flue, but it does dissipate some heat. Some times I like to just sit in front of it and watch the show- much better than TV. Win-win IMO.

 

[jrider]

I have an owb but still put a few cords through the fireplace because we spend all our time in that room and unfortunately, it sits on a concrete pad so the floor is always cold. Playing on the floor with the kiddies sure feels much nicer with a fire going.

 

[doug4k]

I installed a heatilator brand fireplace 25 years ago and put 3 or 4 cords of wood thru it each year to keep the propain man away a little longer. it has outside air intake and a small blower that blows warm air around the steel jacket. it can keep the house at 65 on a above zero not too windy day. it does require loading every hour or two and eats a lot of wood. I have been researching new zero clearance air tight fireplaces but cant seem to make such a large investment. I have a wood furnace in the garage I keep thinking I should install in the basement. I really need a more efficient set up. im working way to hard for the heat im getting out of the wood I c/s/s. I cut on my own property so my expenses are not much per cord. I would need to clean the property of deadfalls and unwanted trees anyway. so my expense would be there anyway and I need the exercise too.

 

[kodiak]

We have a zero clearance fireplace. It uses outside air for combustion and has integrated inlet and outlet louvers for blowing the room air around the firebox.

 

[srb08]

I've got a fireplace with a glass door and blower. It has dual outside air intakes and dual blowers. As long as you keep the glass clean, you have the ambiance of the fire and the heat. Our house is 4,000sq ft and the fireplace does a good job of heating the portion my wife and I use, down to about 10 degrees outside temp. When it drops below 10 degrees, we supplement with a propane furnace.

 

[Twindad]

Our house is heated by the owb, but we still have a fire in the fireplace almost every night this time of year for the ambiance.

 

[TC262]

I tore my natural fireplace out and installed a built in stove. Still have the ambiance but with efficiency!

 

[v-ridge]

here is what happened to our fire place

 

[Tim Carroll]

I heat with a fireplace insert which is actually quite like a stove. I fired it up Friday night and the furnace did not kick in till this morning. As long as I run the furnace fan and use a ceiling fan in the room the fireplace is in, I can heat 2,000 square feet of living space with it all weekend long 70-74 degrees. The trade off is that our basement is very cool when we are running the fireplace, maybe like 60 degrees. My wife is in the basement running a business weekdays so I let the furnace run on week days.

.

PS Forgot to mention wood consumption is about 3 full cord during a long cold Wisconsin winter, which I think is fairly good since this is about 60% of my heat.

 

[stihlaficionado]

I tore my natural fireplace out and installed a built in stove. Still have the ambiance but with efficiency!
View attachment 332850

I also have this. The Lennox Brentwood is the BIS Ultima clone I believe. It has saved us $2,000 plus each year.