Heating and cooking with firewood.
Our 4 room / 50 m2 cabin is heated with only one woodstove placed in the middle and encased in the walls.Basically the smoke from the stove spirals inside the walls untill it gets up the chimney almost completely cold.
The feeding gate of the stove stays completely closed most times,with the lower communicating gate opened just 1/2'' whenever we need a quick hot fire.It`s 20 degrees C below outside and 22+ inside with about 2 milk crates of wood/day .The little door to the left side is what we call the Pizza oven and is great for baking/cooking or roasts.Once the wood is fastly burned,all gates get closed and the fire will last for 8-9 hrs of course with a log or two every 3-4 hrs to sustain the fire.Although they cannot be seen,the stove contains +400 heat retaining bricks laid into 15-20 meters of tunnels and mortared with clay (like pottery clay) which get heated up by the smoke going thru on the way to the chimney.The fireplace will keep warm 2-3 days after the fire inside is completely estinguished.The hot plate we use it to cook on or make toast on or off the direct fire by taking the circles off. Since there is no running water available yet I didn`t bother to run a pipeline thru so I can get hot water at no cost, however is doable.
Sorry to rain on your parade,but the particular fireplace you got I think is for looks only and since it communicates directly with the chimney you`ll probably retain more heat inside your house if you have a glass window on it.Besides running an electric fan so close to the wood fire gives you a great chance for carbon monoxide poisoning.
I now learned a lot about woodstoves and chimneys and I make my own, they`re lots of books out there about how to do it properly, air intake/ exhaust ratios,spiraling the smoke so you`ll get the maximum amount of heat etc. Heat is not only on the flame itself but also in the smoke so what you wanna do is capture the maximum amount of it .
My advice to you is just stop that nonsense before you or somebody will die in your sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning since carbon monoxide doesn`t rise up the chimney but stays low,exactly at the flame level,where your pipes and electric fan are with great chances to be blown inside the house instead of going up the chimney.
No offence intended to you but I`d suggest you do some more research before you put your life and the lives of others at such a risk. And you did asked for our opinions
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