Fireplace advice appreciated

[Blackbird_BX]

That looks just like the Majestic fireplace we have in our new house that I plan on replacing the first chance I get. It's pretty good as open hearth fireplaces go, but we were spoiled by the small closed system insert in our old house. Our Majestic has the outside air option and glass doors.

The open hearth uses 4 times the wood and puts out about 1/4 the heat the Lopi insert. One of the things I really miss is being able to load up the fireplace before going to bed and still have coals burning and the house warm in the morning. That's a key difference between the controlled burn of a closed system and an open hearth.

 

[khd]

Thank you for the quick replies and suggestions. As most of you know, Texas winters are not gonna qualify as bad in anybodies books. 70 degrees outside today. We only have two months when it's cold out and of that time, we only get down to freezing temps a few times.

The primary reason for the fireplace is for looks. The mantel and place for the flat screen TV are more important than actual heating. I figured that while I'm planning this, I might as well make it functional, thus my reasoning for the insert. Currently we heat the house with two plug in, ceramic heaters. We save $100 a month on electricity using those instead of the central heating system. So maximum heat isn't an issue for us.

We thought about a freestanding stove, but just don't want one. We want the rock fireplace, lodge look for the room.

I haven't heard about triple wall chimeny's, but will look into them. Thanks.

The brands are all new to me, so it's much appreciated to hear of those that you like. I haven't heard of an "airtight" insert. I'll do some searches on those. Thanks.

Rox,

You might be right about to much rock. I'm not sure yet if that's the way to go or not. We have a 53 inch big screen and don't want to go any smaller. We'll probably buy a 52 inch LCD flat screen and I'm not sure how that will look with rock around it. I have all the space that I need to cut it into the wall and recess it in there without too much effort. Sometimes less is more.

Thank you,
Eddie & Steph

I would do a bump out to install the insert in and run the stack. Still can get a nice surround and mantle without eating and floor space. Also you stack will be self contained in the bump isolating from the rest of the house. Triple wall pipe is really nice and makes me feel safe but get ready for sticker shock. I put my wood burner in over 10 years ago and on a single story house is cost me about $750.00 in pipe.

Good luck.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[Matt_W]

Eddie,
First I would suggest reading over woodheat.org. They have some great info there not on specific brands names but rather everything that comes with installing a fireplace.
I was a little late reading over there site and found that I have made some mistakes.
I have a zc fireplace with the chimney running out in one of framed chase's hanging off the house and it is not insulated. So now before every fire I have to prime the chimney or I will set off the fire alarms.
They also explain open hearths and how they do not work well in todays homes.
I know if I burn my unit with the doors open it will suck all the heated air for combustion from inside the house and the heater will kick on.
I have a cat fireplace and next year I will have to replace it. Not sure what the cost is but I am sure it is over $200 or maybe double.
I have also built a wood shed that you was mentioning. The door opens right beside the fireplace and is very convienent and less of a mess.
I can load the opposite side with wood racks with my tractor.

Just some things to think about.

 

[RockyMnt1]

We really like out Lopi free standing wood stove. Good quality constrution that has held up for continous winter use. Much more efficient than our previous Schrader stove (8 cords vs. 4-5 cords of wood per winter). This thing really puts out the heat (we don't even use the electric baseboard heat unless it gets below 5 degrees for a couple of days).

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you everyone for your advice. I'm on overload right now and even considering a free standing stove. Steph is dead set against one, but if I can find a setup that will work for us and gives us a look that we like, I might consider it. We really want that log cabin rock fireplace look, so it's gonna be tough to get past that dream.

I'm reading your links and trying to absorb as muh as possible. The more I read, the less I know!!!

Eddie

 

[jejeosborne]

I hope you are not sliding toward the stove option because of sticker shock. I have seen your stone work at your front entrance and think that you will save a good chunk of cash getting the look you are going for by doing the "lickem and stickem" yourself. As far as the unit itself, the more effecient units tend to cost the most. In Texas I would not be using effeciency as one of my deciding factors. We have a second zero clearance wood burning fireplace in our bedroom that only cost $450 for the entire unit. It is not effecient with no doors and we have a gas log set in it. We wanted a gas fireplace but my wife didn't like the glass on all direct vent units. She wanted an open unit for a more rustic look. So we ended up with a wood unit with gas logs. Another advantage of this setup is that the gas logs have much more realistic flames because they are not limited to being efficient and having a small flame in a confined space. Maybe a setup like this is an option for you. Get the look you want as well as a backup heat source. I would miss the splitting exercise though and gain a few pounds.

 

[EddieWalker]

Sticker shock has had some effect on me, but Steph straightened me out last night. Told me that there's only only one way to do it that I'll be happy with, so we just spend whatever it will cost to get that result.

Between Steph and I, she is much better at laying rock. Better eye, more care, and she's more atistic then I am. I'm the planner and the laborer. LOL

Before I can build the fireplace, I need to get the area behind that wall cleared out of all my stuff. When I built my house, I built a pad for my storage shed. I bought some lumber the other day for the forms, so when it stops raining and dries out a bit, I'll get those set and start on my shed.

I don't expect to actually start on this until late summer, but I'm hopeful that I can come up with a plan sometime soon based on the unit that I buy. Pretty soon, prices should drop on inserts, so my timing might be pretty good if I can get lucky.

Thanks,
Edddi

 

[jeffinsgf]

Eddie,

I had open an hearth fireplace in one of my earlier homes and all the time I was growing up in my folks home (where I was the chief fire tender). Now I have a Buck Stove insert set into a brick surround. It was built as a stove surround, rather than being an open hearth fireplace conversion --- meaning that there is no masonry flue. It is a stainless steel multi-walled (don't know if is double or triple) pipe.

The glass door sealed stove insert has some distinct advantages over an open hearth fireplace. First and foremost for me is that it requires a lot less diligence when it is not being used. There is no guessing about whether the flue is open or closed. There is no downdraft making the room smell smoky. In use, there is no spitting and popping of embers into the room and when the fire dies down, you aren't letting your electric or gas heat shoot up the flue. For me the ambience is not quite as nice as an open hearth, but awfully darn close. There's a fine line in the room between the pleasant smell of an open hearth fire and sooty-smoky. You don't get much of any smell with a stove.

The other thing that I would check carefully in your plan is the temperature sensitivity of your new television and the potential temperature that your flue area might reach -- under worst case scenario conditions.

 

[dmccarty]

Eddie we put in a wood stove to heat the house. The stove sits on a hearth that is in the corner of the living room. The hearth elevates the stove so its at our eye height when sitting down. The hearth and the corner walls are brick with the hearth top being black granite. The wall are two layers of brick. We did this for both the look and to have mass to hold the heat. Works well.

You could do something similar with rock. I have also seen where people put the wood stove in an alcove which looked pretty nice. No reason you could use rocks instead of brick.

The thing I don't like about our stove is that we have no wood storage. There simply was no room to build in any with the possible exception of under the hearth. I have an idea on how to store the wood nicer than what we do now but its going to be awhile before it gets done. In the meantime we use 5 gallon buckets to bring in the wood.

15-20 gallons of wood will keep us warm for 10-12 hours.

The hearth had a 6 inch pipe that runs down under the the slab and then to the outside of the house. This brings in combustion air to the house.

Attached is a photo the cluttered stove. Really need to build the wood storage box. The dog water bowl is to the left because we have a dog that is ill and that is an easy place for her to get water.

Later,
Dan

 

[smfcpacfp]

I have a forced air wood furnace for heating and a beautiful fireplace with a heatolator (sp?) insert. It is a real stone fireplace which holds up my house.

My advice on fireplaces - don't waste your money! On rare occassions we use it. I use it a least once a year to burn Christmas paper. I have also used when we have power outages in the winter. Otherwise it is a very expensive decoration that requires maintaince, especially above the roofline. Where we live we have two furnaces (propane and wood) and sometimes I have had to use both. Once when it got to -50, I was using both and the 100,000 BTU heatolator on the fireplace came in handy.

 

[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.