Wood Stove Insert for the fireplace, suggestions please

[EddieWalker]

Both my parents and I bought inserts for our fireplaces when we lived in CA. We both had different brands, but overall they where similar to each other. Both weighed about 400 pounds and it took four guys to pick up a corner of it and slide it just off the ground to get it to the fireplace, then a massive effort to lift it up and into the fireplace. I think that weight has a lot to do with how much heat they are able to send out into the house. Both of us had blowers on ours and it didn't take long to heat up the house to the point you had to either turn off the fan, or open a window.

I now have a wood stove and it's even better at heating the house. It doesn't have a fan and I don't think it needs it. I still have the same problem of overheating the house and having to open a window, but with the wood stove, it happens with a lot less wood.

My parents now have a much newer wood fireplace that circulates the air around it and blows it out warmer. It's rated as being very efficient, but it's light weight and really a piece of junk. It does blow warm air, but not much. I think the big difference is that it weighs 50 pounds instead of 400 pounds like the good ones do.

From reading through the forums and reviews before buying mine, I think there are a lot of good options out there, but you have to stick with something heavy that's made out of cast iron. Those are all so close to each other that it wont matter what brand you buy. The big difference is the finish and trim kits they come with. Go heavy, or don't bother.

Eaddie

 

[WaterDawg]

The house was built in 1950, it has a five year old oil fired boiler, the heat is transferred throughout the home via old style cast iron radiators. In the future I'm considering going with an outside wood fired boiler, but that's a ways off due to cost. Unfortunately with the existing fireplace I'm limited to an insert.

Those "Old Style" cast iron radiators...do they look like this?

 

[dmccarty]

Getting outside air to use for combustion would be a good, but possibly hard, to do in an existing house.

We heat with a "small" wood stove that uses outside air for the fire. The stove works well until the high temps fall into the teens and then it struggles to keep the living room any warmer than 75. The farthest rooms from the stove will be 5-10 degrees colder which seems to be warmer than many people keep their entire house. Our stove is an Osburn but it is on the small size for our house which is a little over 2,400 and we have 10 foot tall ceilings which increases the heated volume of the house quite a bit.

We really like the Osburn stove.

We have a family member who has a heavy insert and it will cook you out of the room.

Our house in the city had a prefab fireplace which was not the best. If we ran the fireplace, one side of the house would be warm but the bedrooms would be freezing. Part of the problem was that the fireplace was in a room with a cathedral ceiling which trapped warm air and the hallway ceiling to the back of the house was under 8 feet tall which further limited air movement. Our current house was designed for easy air flow from the stove to the far side of the house which has worked out well. Besides the air flow in the old house, the fireplace pulled air for combustion from the leaky walls/windows which really was problematic and I think this also helped make the back side of the house colder. The house also had metal framed windows which let in the cold air, the walls were not as well insulated as they could have been and the same was true for the attic. I had meant to add insulation to the attic but never got around to that chore. Insulation is really the first priority if it is lacking.

Later,
Dan

 

[Happy Gilmore]

Those "Old Style" cast iron radiators...do they look like this?

I wish I had cast iron baseboard, no, the are the stand up style that sit on the floor against the wall.

 

[s219]

My parents now have a much newer wood fireplace that circulates the air around it and blows it out warmer. It's rated as being very efficient, but it's light weight and really a piece of junk. It does blow warm air, but not much. I think the big difference is that it weighs 50 pounds instead of 400 pounds like the good ones do.

Sounds like our unit. But I found out that its 100,000 BTU/Hr rating assumes the doors are open so you get full radiant heat, and that makes all the difference in the world. If we run with glass doors closed and fan on, the heat output is fairly weak. But with doors open (fan on or off) the radiant heat is insane, and it will heat up our entire first floor (about 1100 sq ft) after running for 3-4 hours and building up a bed of embers. We have our thermostat (on the opposite corner of the first floor) set to 71F, and it will generally get up to 72 or 73 by the afternoon with the fireplace going.

Despite the dual wall design and blower, I think these sheet metal fireplaces just don't have enough thermal mass to really provide a lot of heat by convection. There's almost no metal mass to absorb and transfer heat. And being flush mount, nothing sticks out into the room to throw off convective heat. So they seem to be highly biased to radiant heat. Run with doors open and keep the flames cranking to get anything decent out of them.

That said, nothing beats a good heavy standalone stove. Next best is an insert that pokes out from the wall a few feet or more. Both of them will belt out some serious heat, as you get good thermal mass, surface area for convection into the room, and you can usually still run with the doors open for radiant heat too if you want it.

 

[Egon]

Burning with the doors open could lead to an overheated stove and chimney.

 

[Lloyd_E]

Egon,

I burn my stove with the doors open(screen in place) at least once a week... I like the smell, sound and light from the fire. It actually burns lower in temperature. Cold air is drawn up from the floor and into the stove. I watch the gauge on the pipe all the time - even have the kids trained to keep an eye on it. I can stack it full and it will run in the yellow zone of the pipe thermometer. Usually just in the middle or slightly left of centre...

Burn both soft and hard wood.

Initially couldn't figure why and had a firefighter friend explain that there was enough cold air being drawn in to cool the fire/stove.
Maybe my floors are really cold!!!