Fireplace advice appreciated

[MarkV]

Eddie as you are planning and shopping do check these two things. Our Buck insert in a masonry fire place will warm up the brick enough that it exceeds the recommended limits for hanging our Panasonic Plasma TV. The most irritating thing about our insert is the amount of noise the blower makes. I would shop for as quiet of blower as I could find.

MarkV

 

[bruski]

Your mentioning that you live in Texas makes a wood stove questionable, but after having used one as our primary heating source for the last two winters I'm a believer in them. We have a little Vermont Castings model with glass front doors (plus a screen if the "fireplace" look is desired). The little sucker will heat our entire 2000 square foot house (very open/high ceilinged floor plan) nicely to outside temps as low as about 15 degrees. With temps in the 20s/30s very little wood is needed. And, the look of the stove is charming. Wood storage inside? I'd be worried about insects . . . A canvas bag wood carrier from one of many mail order outlets will allow you to bring in enough wood for a 24 hour period. I think the effective usefulness of a wood stove is dependent on how your house is laid out and the location of the stove. Fireplaces? Pretty nice anywhere . . .

Bruski

 

[EddieWalker]

I agree that this is gonna be a huge waste of money. If I try to figure out what I will spend on it versus what I will save on heating the house, then include my time in cutting firewood, splittng it and maintaining my chainsaws, it's downright foolish. That said, we both want one.

Thanks to everyones recomendations, I have a list of suppliers in Tyler that I want to go visit. I'm currently working on a house in the oposite direction of Tyler, out in the country, so it's gonna be awhile until I do any actual hands on research.

We really appreciate the pictures.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Highbeam]

Jeje got it right. You are describing a zero clearance fireplace and not an insert.

An insert must be inserted into an actual masonry chimney with all the block and firebrick. You would need to build a real masonry fireplace/chimney at great cost and then buy an insert for it. The insert is a retrofit.

The zero clearance units can be a fireplace looking thing with metal pipe and flush mounted to a wall or built into an alcove or...

I use a non-catalytic Hearthstone Brand woodstove for heat, made in Vermont. This woodstove is made of soapstone which is a granite looking stone mined in Brazil. There is no firebrick or other mumbo jumbo just cast iron and soapstone. It is not your ordinary stove but has been extremely pleasant to use and to look at. People can't help but touch it since they don't believe it could be throwing heat, the stone doesn't look hot and they run a little cooler than a blazing hot steel stove. Large windows and good quality.

The clearance requirements for my stove is 7" to the back wall so it does not stick out into the room much and with your concrete floors you don't need a hearth sticking out front. I built mine onto a raised hearth and feed it with outside air. 2000$ for the stove and about 1200$ for the entire chimney system.

Hearthstone makes two or three sizes bigger and two or three smaller than mine which is named the "heritage" model. The soapstone has some unique heat storage qualities which make it very nice for moderate climates.

 

[rox]

Highbeam, REALLY NICE looking stove. For some reason i did a search of where soapstone comes from because I thought for sure it was mined in france. I quit searching before I found the answer but I did find out that soapstone is foung all over, Canada, Vermont, Africa, India etc. I cam across this interesting post about soapstone pots, on this link it is about half way down the page - Debra Lynn Dadd : : At Home With Debra ~ My New Cookware I was jsut thinking that some nice soapstone posts would probably go really well sitting on top of your soapstone stove.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here's an interesting site with a rating, review and price paid for all the different brands and models. I've sort of zeroed it down to Zero Clearance Inserts as those seem to be the best for a house without an existing fireplace and to burn wood.

Ratings of Woodstoves, Fireplaces, soapstone manuacturers, retailers,disaster,woodstoves,woodstove,wood stove

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

Eddie:

Think about the possibility of a gas (either natural or propane) stove.

Sure, you don't get that "free" firewood, but you also don't get the dirt, bugs, and work of cutting, splitting and hauling it, and, best of all, you don't have ashes to deal with.

I heated exclusively with wood for 25 years, and in my new house opted for one propane fireplaces, and one freestanding propane stove.

A wood fireplace is a huge source of dust & dirt from ashes, and the smoke that inevitably gets back into the room is a nasty bit of indoor air pollution -- worse for you and your family than any smog.

The other thing to think about is that with a house your size, bigger is not better with fireplaces. The heat from a fireplace will quickly drive you out of the room it is in.

Just to give you an idea, the study in our new house in Oregon is about 260 square feet. I deliberately bought one of the smallest freestanding propane fireplaces/stoves I could find for it. The rating is that it will put out between 6000 and 14,000 BTU/hour. I turn it down to the lowest possible setting and it heats the study to 72 to 75 degrees with the outside temperature in the high 20s to low 30s.

We have heat pumps for the whole house, but the study is on a completely separate zone from the rest of the house with its own thermostat, so this is with no heat at all from the heat pump.

When I cut down trees on the property, the branches go into a burn pile and the trunks/major limbs are taken away by someone who will do it free for the wood.

 

[yomax4]

I have a new home with I believe a Vermont American fire Place. I would not recomend it. The sides and top are thin fire brick and we have trouble with it cracking. Not dangerous but in convienient considering the price. You do want one that gets its air from outside which is common now days. You will probabley have a blower fan on it and this is what I wanted to mention,. The fan will be noisy on high. What I did was remove the fan assembly and pipe in 3" PVC and ran it outside and into the basement. Then I hooked up a draft inducer fan off of a Lennox Pulse Furnace. You need to use 45 degree fittings instead of 90 degree. Hooked it to a dimmer switch that came with the original fan. This makes no sound and it will blow heat 15 ft from the fire place. ( If you have a basement )

Good Luck.

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie:

Think about the possibility of a gas (either natural or propane) stove.

Dave,

You make a strong argument for propane. I've had a mental block against using gas, but with the price of electricity climbing, I'm questioning my wisdom on this. My water heater is electric and even though it's supposedly the top of the line energy efficient electric model, I don't really care for it. If I make the leap to propane, I can also go to instant hot water too.

Definately something to consider. Thank you.

Eddie

 

[CurlyDave]

Eddie:

I thought a lot about instant hot water and decided against it.

My reasoning is that we are on a septic system, and rather than cautioning each and every guest I might have about taking too long a shower, I decided that if they ran out of hot water, they would limit themselves.

On the fireplaces, we have used about 100 gallons of propane since the start of the heating season in October. DW is with me about half time, about half time at our old place in CA. I am in Oregon 100% of the time. Essentially our only propane uses are cooking and fireplaces.

If you get a tank, be sure to get a big enough one. We rented a 500 gallon tank for about $75 per year, a 250 was $50 per year. The larger tank lets me wait until July or August, when propane prices are at their lowest and get a whole year's worth at once.

I handled the "looks like a beached submarine" issue by aiming the tank directly at the house, so it looks smaller, and putting it in the woods about 200' away from the house.