@kreestuh I meant to write this earlier, so hopefully it is still useful. On the news links show a few weeks ago, you mentioned that you were thinking about getting a wood burning stove. My advice is get one!
We had a fireplace insert installed after we bought our place, and every winter we still both agree that it is one of the best purchases we made. The room that it is in will get toasty warm and cozy. It’s nice to actually warm up in the winter, rather than going back and forth between frigid to slightly chilly for a few months. The insert has a blower to put some of the heat back into the room/house as well. When it’s really going, the room will get over 80f, maybe into the 90s. toasty warm! Having a fire is an activity all by itself, especially during the short winter days.
We had an existing fireplace, so there might be extra costs if you have to install a chimney or vent. The inserts and wood burning stoves are certainly much more efficient than the old fashioned fireplace since they don’t suck the warm, heated air out of your house.
The fuel is also renewable, so that’s a plus. We have bought wood in the past, but we also have our trees trimmed every few years and save the wood whenever we can. Just yesterday, we were splitting some dried logs to get ready for the winter. If you are going to burn your own wood, you will also want a place to dry it and store it. I’ve built an outdoor rack for drying and a storage shed for keeping the wood, but it can be something as simple as a pile of wood covered with a tarp.
If you are on the fence about a wood stove, I say go for it!
Urghhh I really want one haha. I need to figure out where to get a quote from. We have a non-functional brick fireplace/hearth in our living room but when they re-roofed the house they knocked down the actual part that goes outside, so that would have to be rebuilt. I really like the idea of having a back up heat source in the winter, also it’s just nice to sit near a fire.
I’ll second the insert. My mom bought one and it works great. Just make sure that if you get a pellet feeder one you have some spare parts on hand. Seems like once every year or two she has to do maintenance on it and replace something.
It’s a Quadra-fire voyageur- It looks like it has been retired, but I think this is a similar style. We bought ours at a fireplace/grill store.
The large glass door let’s you watch the hypnotic fire. We’ve found that if we use dry wood, the glass is very easy to clean. The first winter we had it, we bought wood that wasn’t properly seasoned and the glass would get dark and sooty very often.
Since you already have a fireplace, an insert might be a good option. They do use a stainless steel liner, so you might be able to get away with just having a capped pipe, rather than a brick chimney. It think it has to clear the roof-line.
The one thing that has been a little hard is getting it cleaned. We had one chimney sweep over twice and he wasn’t able to clean it since he didn’t know how to take it apart and didn’t want to disassemble it. I think we just have to get the right chimney sweep in that has experience with inserts.
No, we had it installed as part of the package. I want to say that the insert and installation was about $5K. That was everything, including the chimney liner and any work they had to do for the electrical.
How do you deal with the large pile of messy ash you have to clean up after every fire? Just scooping it up sends so much of the extremely-light material into the indoor air, while getting it wet causes a whole other set of issues.
There are a number of studies that occupants of house that burn wood have more lung issues and reduced life-span, and with all the ash particles, I can easily believe it.
A wood stove is certainly a big efficiency improvement over a fire place, and an EPA certified one even more-so. Installation can be very easy if you are installing it next to an outside wall… Piping the chimney horizontally through the wall is quite easy, with proper insulated double-pipe, sheet metal, and hangers/supports.
However, based on my experience, I would only recommend it as an emergency backup source of heating, in the event your electric and/or gas goes out for days. The clean-up issue had me avoiding using mine. Also, the first question home insurance companies ask is whether you have a wood stove or fireplace, no doubt increasing your premiums if you answer “yes.”
That does remind me that we got a federal tax credit for the insert too since it burns biofuel or something like that. I want to say it was $500, but I could be very wrong about this.
Regarding the ash, we have an ash bucket and a fireplace HEPA vac for cleaning. Yes, there is some ash that gets out, but we’re generally careful to limit the ash. The high efficiency fireplaces produce less ash too.
In my case, we don’t use the fireplace for primary heating, so it’s mostly used on weekends and occasionally during the week. For us, the benefit of the fireplace outweighs the health risks from the ash.
Fireplaces are the worst. No wait, my two fireplaces that have outer hearths with jagged uneven stone which makes inserts unfeasible.
Wood stove are amazing, create tons of heat with little wood, create almost no smoke in the house and burn hotter and cleaner. My next house will definitely have one.
Edit: Are people seriously complaining about having to sweep up ash? Yeesh.
During the winter, I don’t empty out the ashes each time. I usually just gather the coals and use that as fuel for the next fire. After a half dozen fires or so, the ashes start to get deep enough to empty out.
And as of today… the insert still has ashes in it from the last fire in March/April or whenever it was that we used it the last time.
Do you have a Hearth and Home franchise near you? My wife’s uncle owns two of them in Pennsylvania and they do quality work. https://www.hearthnhome.com/wheretobuy
Wood ash when well mixed with a lot of top soil adds nitrates back into the soil, good for plants.
And coal cinders while messy are great for icy walkways and roads.( i carry sand and ash mix in plastic buckets in the back of my truck in the winter.)
I used quite a bit last year on the icy roads at accident scenes so my fellow firefighters and police had secure footing.
I will say however a wood stove and or working wood burning fireplace can seriously cause an increase the fire insurance premium.
I left the hummingbird feeder up and the nectar froze yesterday. Today is right around freezing, but it’s been lightly snowing all day. I think it’s finally cold enough to justify using the fireplace! The fire is warm and hypnotic, and it really helps keep the cold and darkness at bay during the winter.
Frozen hummingbird feeders is a thing! Thanks for that- now I don’t feel as bad for leaving the feeders up for so long. I was going to get to it soon, I just didn’t expect the weather to get cold enough to freeze the nectar. I also brought in some of the garden hoses from from the front yard (but there is still a length out there… drying!)
Home projects are a never ending list. I’ve gotten used to that fact that there will always be something on the horizon… windows, roof, furniture, landscaping, lather, rinse, repeat. We’ve wanted to get solar panels for the last 8 years… maybe next year!
@kreestuh living the real life Cataclysm with the garden, hikes, crafting/making… All we need is zombies.
My fondest memories has been near the fireplace as a kid in the winter… I would love one in my place it’s just super expensive to get one installed where I am so it’s a bit down the list of home improvements
Remember to put your hummingbird feeders back up in the exact same spot that it was before. Turns out hummingbirds migrate long distances but remember where particular feeders are along their routes and stop at them kind of like rest stops. So if you see only one hummingbird every spring, it’s probably the same one.
