Wood burning fireplace inserts?

[DayMan]

We live in a home built back in the 30's. And as you could imagine, what was code 80 years ago would never fly today. We have a fireplace and have been using it for the past few years. I called a new chimney sweep company for my cleaning and when he came out, he did not clean the chimney and suggested it wasn't safe b/c the 'air clearance' between the chimney and wood wasn't sufficient and that hot-brick, in contact with wood, could start a fire.

He suggested we build a fire, burn for a few hours then feel the walls and brick along the chimney to see if it was hot. If it did not get hot, he thinks it would be ok to use and will come back out to clean it. But he did say the chimney was clean enough at this point for these 'test' fires as we check the brick.

My wife told him we were hoping to reduce heating costs by using the fireplace this winter and he said that it was unlikely to be that effeicient and we were better off getting a wood burning stove insert which would be efficent and safer. He does not sell them and couldn't even suggest a vendor, so I am satisfied he wasn't opting not to clean the chimney so he could instead get paid for an insert and labor.

Anyone hae similar experiences and/or equipment?

 

[Doc4]

We live in a home built back in the 30's.

My wife told him we were hoping to reduce heating costs by using the fireplace this winter and he said that it was unlikely to be that effeicient and we were better off getting a wood burning stove insert which would be efficent and safer. He does not sell them and couldn't even suggest a vendor, so I am satisfied he wasn't opting not to clean the chimney so he could instead get paid for an insert and labor.

Anyone hae similar experiences and/or equipment?

He is right that a mere fireplace is not going to be efficient at heating.

I grew up in a home of similar vintage ... and a simple fireplace (which we had) will lose almost all its heat straight up the chimney. The fire is nice to sit by and warm yourself, but ... doesn't heat the house.

You need a good wood burning stove or insert. I do not know the models &c, but a good modern one will do very well. (A wood burning stove in the basement can really help a lot in heating the whole house. My Dad got one of those, and a modern insert for the fireplace on the main floor, and boy, what a difference.)

 

[one cut]

were I grew up the fire place was the winter heat.
don't tell me a fire place wont keep you warm, you got warm hauling the wood, you got warm splitting and cutting the wood, you got warm stacking the wood. I don't remember if burning the wood kept us warm because we always fell a sleep after all that work.

 

[DC_MPA]

I live in a new house and I am looking forward to replacing the gas fireplace with a fireplace insert. Provides heat, love the smell, and the look is warming and secure.

 

[BeeSeeDub]

I have a Sierra fireplace insert...came already in place when we bought the house. It is easy to use and with the fans blowing, it does a good job with heating up the downstairs of the house.

It has several vents which can either reduce logs to ash in a few minutes, or keep one burning for hours depending on how much you open them up.

IIRC there is even a kit available for converting it to coal.

That said, we don't use it much...my kids are just getting to the age where I feel it's safe to use it with them around...so maybe that will change.

 

[Dirk-Lerxst-Pratt]

I live in Maine. We burn a whole lot of wood and Bio Bricks in our fireplace insert. It's a Hampton and it's paid for itself many times over. Keeps my very open lower level in the 70's with the blower on. The furnace rarely kicks on for that floor. We use the furnace primarily for wake/sleep time upstairs, with programmable digital thermostats. Can't say enough good things about it. Either can my 13 year old lab who has set up shop in front of it.

 

[Rhon]

Check out pellet inserts as well. I got tired of cutting, splitting, hauling and stacking and now we just open a 40# sack of pellets. You still get the ambiance of a log fire but not the bugs and spiders and mess that comes with wood. Plus they're about the same price.

 

[DayMan]

Thanks for the information!

 

[legrandfromage]

i used to have a fireplace insert and found it to be quite efficient in throwing heat from the fire back into the room, but I would not consider it a heating source. It is helpful in two other respects (if you like using your fireplace): 1. the intakes in the front can be used to balance the fire so that it uses as little air from your house as possible and lessens the impact on your main system's thermostat, and 2. you can close off the fireplace while the ashes are cooling down without having the heated air from your house sucked up the open flue.

 

[PugslyCat]

I have experience both first and second hand with open fireplaces, several wood stoves, and fireplace inserts.

• An open fireplace can help knock the chill off and adds ambiance. An awful lot of that heat goes straight up the chimney.
• Very basic models, like my current tone, take air that I already paid to heat out of the room for combustion and send it out the chimney. It's a modular pre-fab job with sections of double wall chimney pipe stacked on top of it. The brick box surrounding it all is more for looks than anything else.
• A family member has a nice fireplace with glass doors, a heat exchanger and fan in the chimney, and brings outside air into the fireplace for combustion. It's almost as efficient as a wood stove.

An old woodstove functions much the same as a fireplace, but at least it sits in the room a bit more and you get much more heat from it.

• My uncle used to have an old Franklin stove that was little more than a metal box with loose fitting doors and a metal flue.
• I've had a Wonderwood stove that was a big semi-air tight steel box within a box. The flow of combustion air was controlled by a vent. It seemed to heat pretty efficiently.
• My current stove is a Vermont Castings EPA stove that does a neat thing where it routes the exhaust gasses back across the top of the fire and burns off a bit more of the gasses that would otherwise condense as creosote in the chimney or become air pollution.

A former neighbor of mine had a cast iron fireplace insert in a masonary fireplace. It basically converted her fireplace to a wood stove. Her son was able to supply wood by the dump truck full and she did most of her heating with it.

One of the keys to heating with wood is to have a steady supply of inexpensive wood. I have been harvesting recently killed trees from my fathers farm for the past decade. I split as much as I can with a maul each year. When the wood racks are full of wood I can't split that way, which is every 3-4 years, I rent a splitter. Renting the splitter every few years is much less expensive than buying one and comes without the maintenance headaches.

 

[Seraphim]

We have a gas fireplace insert, and we love it!

 

[JHCC]

The biggest objection to fireplaces is that they pull heated air out of the room and up the chimney, meaning that you have to burn more wood to keep the average temperature up. A lot of modern fireplace inserts have both cold air intakes (which pull outside air into the firebox for combustion) and a vent system that takes in room air, heats it, and returns it to the room, either with a fan or through natural convection. A firebox conversion would also probably include an insulated vent pipe run down your chimney, which would eliminate a lot of the fire risk your sweep warns of.

 

[Bobbers]

I have lived in several houses that have had fireplaces or wood stoves. I for several years sold fireplace inserts and wood stoves but that has been a few years back. Over the years I have seen and used both good and bad units. A lot of times if you go to a big box store and look at them the sales people are trained to tell you what the company has told them. With that said you can usually get a better price throw them and they can also special order units in that they do not stock. You can get a lot better information if you can talk to someone that has one in their house and uses one. I have seen basic models that do a very good job look rather pain and I have seen very nice looking ones that do not put much if any heat in the room. The other thing to consider is to check with your insurance company, some companies have some strange rules and rate for wood burning appliances. Ask a lot of questions and you will find one that fits your needs.

 

[Snappy Lunch]

I have a Buck Stove model 91 catalytic. When I have the Catalytic bar pushed in it really does cut out 75% or more smoke coming from the chimney. The fan helps push the heat into the rest of the house. On high it is a tad loud, but I only turn it to high when we go to bed and can't hear it. We also put in a stainless steel flue liner to be safe. Ours has the black trim package, I did not like the brass trim.
Vermont Castings make high quality inserts also, but a bit higher price point.

 

[DayMan]

Well, perhaps I'll start looking at those new thermal infrared heaters instead... The prices for an insert might be cost prohibitive...

 

[chfair]

A novel idea i have been looking into for the future is a rocket stove mass heater that to my knowledge you would have to pretty much make yourself (could make it cheaper or a lot more expensive).

The idea is extremely efficient heat source burning very little wood. Again this is just something I have been looking into as the area i am in we may have a month or so of freezing weather a year so heating is not a large expense.

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

Not sure if links work on the forum if not just Google "Rocket mass heater".