# fireplaces



## tuffy (Dec 14, 2017)

why does it seem to be the fad now to convert your wood burning fireplace to gas .I love my wood burning fireplace.seems like on all the home improvement shows that's the first thing they do.


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## joecaption (Dec 14, 2017)

Let me count the ways.
A fireplace with no insert puts out very little heat, most goes with up the chimney.
Needs lots of make up air for combustion so it gets it by sucking air from the home making the other rooms colder.
Dealing with the soot and smoke in the room.
Having to buy, store, carry in all the wood and deal with the dirt and possible bugs.
Having to clean the chimney every year.
With a vented gas insert you get instant real heat with just the push of a button.
I've used mine to heat a whole smaller home for ten days during a power outage from an ice storm.


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## tuffy (Dec 14, 2017)

joecaption said:


> Let me count the ways.
> A fireplace with no insert puts out very little heat, most goes with up the chimney.
> Needs lots of make up air for combustion so it gets it by sucking air from the home making the other rooms colder.
> Dealing with the soot and smoke in the room.
> ...


you make a lot of good points I might start looking into one next spring.


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## nealtw (Dec 14, 2017)

30 years ago there was a paper going around about the guy that bought a wood burning stove to save money heating his house.
It included the cost of the chimney, the fire proof floor to set it on the stove, the nice box to keep the wood in beside the stove. The wood shed out behind the garage. And the cost of 3 cords of wood delivered over the first winter. Cost of wood was to high when you can get it for free. So he bought a truck, chainsaw, ax, as well as personal safety gear.

That said, I do know people that live further out where fuel is more expensive and they are quit happy burning wood.


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## maxdad118 (Dec 14, 2017)

I did mine on a Craigslist find, $500. I didn&#8217;t have an easy way to plumb a duct from my furnace in my addition.


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## nealtw (Dec 14, 2017)

maxdad118 said:


> I did mine on a Craigslist find, $500. I didnt have an easy way to plumb a duct from my furnace in my addition.



Is that gas?


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## maxdad118 (Dec 14, 2017)

nealtw said:


> Is that gas?



Yes sir, I work for the gas utility and did plenty of plumbing so it was a no brainer for me&#55357;&#56835; The pedestal or hearth and slate was a first time DIY project, wife likes it. Of course now she wants that ship lap to go up another few boards&#55357;&#56873;


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## nealtw (Dec 14, 2017)

maxdad118 said:


> Yes sir, I work for the gas utility and did plenty of plumbing so it was a no brainer for me&#65533;&#65533; The pedestal or hearth and slate was a first time DIY project, wife likes it. Of course now she wants that ship lap to go up another few boards&#65533;&#65533;



I give  people a bad time about gas fireplaces too.
Which burns more gas, a furnace in the basement that runs a few times an hour for a few minutes or a smaller BTU fireplace that runs all day with out turning off. And which leaves some rooms out in the cold?

The bottom line is. people like their fireplace either wood or gas, and that's all that really counts.


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## maxdad118 (Dec 14, 2017)

It&#8217;s supplemental heat with our forced air unit. We have a ceiling fan in the same room to help circulate around. It&#8217;s a combination of a heat source and ambience. Don&#8217;t get me wrong I love the smell of a real fire. Unless there in a woodstove,they aren&#8217;t going  to provide much heat.


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## nealtw (Dec 14, 2017)

maxdad118 said:


> Its supplemental heat with our forced air unit. We have a ceiling fan in the same room to help circulate around. Its a combination of a heat source and ambience. Dont get me wrong I love the smell of a real fire. Unless there in a woodstove,they arent going  to provide much heat.



I grew up in a 800 sq ft house with 7 older brothers and sisters. Heated with a wood stove. Late in the 50s we got a gas stove and furnace and actually had heat in every room. There has never been any more to talk about ever since.


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## Gary (Dec 16, 2017)

Ours is a wood fireplace. I have a customer that's a tree trimmer, so we have an endless supply of free firewood. The first 10-15 years it rarely cooled off during the winter, but these days we light it for special occasions only. Getting too old to haul wood every 2-3 days. the lower cabinets on both sides hold about a day & a half of wood each. It's about 20 years old now and we've had 0 problems after many many cords per year of use. It's a sealed door unit with outside air for coimbustion and another duct to draw outside air through the heat exchanger to provide positive air displacement in the house (they call it). Supposed to be 70+ % efficient (also what they claim).  I know when it's up to temp, you don't stand very close to the doors for very long. I use a duct in one of the skylight wells to draw the heat off the open ceiling and dump it in the far side of the house. heats the whole house that way. 

https://www.andersonsmasonry.com/fireplace-xtordinair-36-elite--36-elite-wood-fireplace.html


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## maxdad118 (Dec 16, 2017)

That&#8217;s beautiful! I like the clock above&#55357;&#56835;&#55357;&#56397;


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## Flyover (Dec 16, 2017)

Both my houses so far have had small wood fireplaces in them. Big enough for "single-log" fires. We don't do the fires for heat, just for atmosphere. We don't notice any other parts of the house getting colder as a result--like I said, we do really small fires. Here's why I like wood fireplaces:

- I love the cozy feeling I get from seeing real wood burning in a fireplace. I just don't get that from tidy gas flames.
- I like the rituals involved in chopping the logs, storing the wood, etc. (We don't burn much of it, so I can mostly use the wood I've cut off trees in the backyard or picked up for free here and there, and occasionally supplement with the occasional $5 bundle from the gas station.)
- I of course love building the fires (always the old-fashioned way from kindling, never with fire-starters of any kind) and consider it a valuable skill I'll pass on to my kids. I'm glad they get to watch me doing it often. (I don't mind cleaning up the ash, either, and getting the chimney cleaned once a year or so isn't a huge problem.)

That said, I've had several friends and family members with inserts or pot belly stoves in their houses and those seem pretty useful. If someone offered to give me one and install it I probably wouldn't turn them down. If it was gas rather than wood I doubt I'd care much, though I'd miss the aspects of wood fireplaces I mentioned above.


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## Gary (Dec 17, 2017)

maxdad118 said:


> Thats beautiful! I like the clock above&#65533;&#65533;&#65533;&#65533;



Thanks MAX. I agree with Flyover, I like the real fire. Nothing like snow outside with a warm fire inside.


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## tuffy (Dec 17, 2017)

Gary said:


> Thanks MAX. I agree with Flyover, I like the real fire. Nothing like snow outside with a warm fire inside.


That's exactly how I feel.:agree:


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## maxdad118 (Dec 17, 2017)

Here in California in the Bay Area, there are a lot of &#8216;no burn days&#8217;. In fact a few years ago on Christmas it was really cold, guess what? No burn day! Are you kidding?! Stupid. That&#8217;s what made me decide to just go gas...I can use it anytime. Now, if I lived in the mountains I wouldn&#8217;t think twice, wood all the way!


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## Chris (Dec 18, 2017)

We have two wood burning fireplaces, both have the fans built in to push heat out. One is downstairs and one is upstairs. We run the upstairs one daily for heat along with our forced air. Our house is all electric and the bill would be 500 a month if we didn't burn wood. I leave the heat at 67 and use fire to bring it higher and keep the furnace from running. We are very rural so no gas is out here and propane wouldn't be bunch cheaper.


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