OT: Fireplaces

While I"m still deciding on a chainsaw, maybe you guys could give me some input. I bought a forclosed house back in the spring. Finally got moved in in July. Well the house has two, plain ol" fireplaces, one in the basement, and one ing the upstairs living room. I don"t really won"t to keep a fire upstairs, but have considered one in the basement.

Question is will one plain fireplace make much of a difference or would it just suck more heat out of the house?? House is all electric with a heatpump, thermostat upstairs, air intake is downstairs in the same room as the fireplace. This months electric bill is looking like $150 and we"ve not really had any cold weather. Kinda scared what it might go to in January or Febuary. Any suggestions??? Thanks.

Casey

If you are looking for heating purposes, then install an insert. Otherwise, they will draw heat from all rooms and chill the house. I wouldn't use one without doors, or an insert of some kind.

Wood stove insert, with an external air supply (even if you have to make it) and a blower. JimN

I used to have a house with one upstairs and one in the basement. The one upstairs, if you kept it fired for about 8 hours straight, would eventually radiate enough heat from the masonry to heat the living room. The one downstairs never drew very well, and even when I kept it fired for a full 24 hours, it wouldn't even take the chill off the small room it was in. I suspect it was thermally coupled to the surrounding soil so the masonry would never get warm. Previous owners had used an insert in the basement fireplace and claimed they could heat the entire downstairs with it easily. That would make sense, since the insert would be pretty well insulated from the masonry.

X2 Fireplace insert. Up here in the NE it's pretty common to have some sort of heat appliance in the basement if there is room. Heat rises so you can get the basement all toasty and let it find it's way up into the main house.

Definately put some doors on the upstairs one. Fireplaces look great and all but they really will draft all that heat right up the chimney.

The Fire Service frowns on insert stoves unless there is provision for inspection and cleaning of the flue. If you don't have a clean out in addition to the fireplace opening you should make one as part of your installation in order to be able to avoid chimney fires.

Fireplaces are to look at, watching the embers in the crispy spring or fall, not to try to heat with. Any open fireplace will draft $$$$ up the chimney unless closed off air-tight.
If money's tight, any kind of old wood/coal burner, with the smokepipe a foot or two up the chimney and thru a fitted closure (make it out of any kind of rigid fireproof material) will throw a lot more heat, and a $10 second-hand store fan blowing on it, or straight up, is a good cheap air circulator. If no hearth you'll have to put something under the stove to insulate any wood etc.
Did you verify each fireplace has its own flue?
Don't rely on the chimney dampers; even closed, they're not near airtight.
If you're going to be in the house for several years, consider putting in some old fashioned registers that, when opened, allow heat to rise from the basement to the first floor, and on up.
Good luck.

I would be absolutely certain that the chimneys are clear before I ever struck a match. They could be creasoted up or have bird nests in them. A house filled with smoke is no fun and may cause a big repair bill. And especially with a repo, you don't know how well things were taken care of.

My family's experience with using a fireplace for heat was not very good until we got tight fitting glass doors to control the flow of air out of the house. With a nice fire going, it felt great in that room, but you could feel the draft coming in around the back door, and the other rooms were cold. And when the fire burned down, you still had to leave the damper open to avoid the CO still coming from the coals. A lot of warmed air went up the chimney. When we got the glass doors installed, the heating effectiveness of the fireplace went up a whole bunch.

However I think you would find that the efficiency of most any wood stove is many times as good as a fireplace.

The other part of the equation is what it costs to get your wood. If you have trees on your property and it only costs the expense of cutting and splitting the wood, it is one thing. If you are paying $250 a cord to have someone else cut the wood and dump it in your driveway, it is something very different. Wood heating is also fairly labor intensive, as you have to keep feeding a fire and carrying in wood, and wood heating is very messy, both from junk on the wood and from having to deal with the ashes.

Wood heat works when the power doesn't, so it is great for emergency heating. But if you have a heat pump system, I am guessing that using a fireplace for auxiliary heating will end up costing you more than if you just left the dampers closed and ran the heat pump. Do you really want to mess with it? Good luck!

I guess I should have mentioned that I had both chimneys swept and inspected back in the summer. Both have there own flue, and both fireplaces have doors. I won't say they are the best doors in the world, but they seem to be decent.

I know an insert or wood stove would be a lot better, but I'm not really for sure how long I'll bein the house, as it was bought strictly as an investment. If the market allows me to sell within a couple of years, I'm going to. At which point I don't think it'd pay to istall a good insert or wood stove. If I'm stuck here for 4 years or more, well it'd probably pay me to install one.

Oh, I do have access to all the Hickory I can stand to cut over on the farm, about 5 minutes away. thanks for the opinions so far. I just wonder if it'll pay me to keep a fire with the doors???

I have always heard how fireplaces lose more heat than they make and how bad they are. But last winter I was at my sister's in Wichita and was quite surprised that they were heating their house with just the fireplace. It has doors and they kept it going just like a wood stove as in they didn't have a flame too often, just coals. Couldn't believe it and was somewhat jealous over how big of logs they could roll in. So give it a try, it might work.

For get the fireplaces . GO get a free standing outside furnace for wood and have fun. No mess in the house and you could just unhook it and take it with you . Depending on the model you would not have to split wood again. Mine has a 27x27 inch door and will take a block over 4ft long.

With a heat pump and a hydro bill of only a measly $150.00. There is nothing to gain money wise by using the fireplace for general heating.
There is more to gain by finding and plugging drafts.
Now using the fireplace as a cozy source of heat on cold evenings while sipping some good brandy or single malt scotch. Or as a source of backup heat should the power fail. That's a different story.
Unless there is an airtight insert with a heat exchanger and a fan. As previously stated the fireplace will pull more heat from the house than what it adds.

Hi Casey,

What I would do is buy a cheap air tight wood stove and use the existing chimney with a blank off for a stack with using outside combustion air. The wood stove would be close too the entrance of the open fire place.

For installation details, go see your local fire marshall as he would like to see a safe install rather than fight a fire at your home. He will have the latest codes for you too follow.

T_Bone

A fire place is the worst possible choice.I spent a month in a hunting camp with a fire place,used a lot of fuel and gave little heat.