Does anyone here just have a masonry fireplace?

Hi all,

I've lurked for a while but finally joined. I also watch FHC on the Roku. In 2012 my wife and I bought our first house, a nice little rancher with a fireplace. It's older but has charm, including the original wood burning fireplace. I have access to quite a bit of free wood at work (I just have to process) and we like burning even though we know the fireplace is inefficient. It helps that we have a NG furnace.

Is there anyone else on these boards only using a masonry fireplace? We REALLY enjoy it and I also like processing wood. We're in the process of finishing the basement (previously gutted due to flooding) and the previous owners left a wood stove when they moved, so we'll probably hook that up once the basement is complete. But until then, it's the fireplace. Anyone else in a similar situation?

-- B

 

Welcome B.

We burned for a few seasons in our masonry fireplace. We enjoyed having that open fire in the living room. (especially the night we lit a pile of lath from a wall demolition up) After a bit of online reading, we realized the inefficency of it and started looking for a stove.

To me this whole woodburning journey is a learning process. We are now on our third stove(thanks to CL), each one more suited to what we need. As I look back, I am glad we made the change. I won't make this a bashing response on fireplaces, but switching to a stove or insert far outweighs the ambience of a fire IMO. When you think about a draft going up a fireplace, it is your warm, heated air leaving the house at an accelerated pace.

Very good friends of ours use their fireplace frequently. They have an older house, so you are really warm facing the fireplace, but the draft pulled in from around the windows and other rooms is not pleasant. It is nice to sit around and watch the fire crackle away, I miss that just a little. Keeping more heat in the house and letting it heat the objects in the room is a plus. Cooking on the stove top is a bonus on those long cold winter days.

 

I know what you mean. If you look closely you can see dust particles heading straight for the fire...

I just can't get over how much inserts cost. It'd take about ten years for us to break even based on what we spend heating with NG. That said, I think it's in our future and I'm pretty excited to get the basement stove hooked up again.

 

Any stove can be converted to a fireplace. Simply open the front door of the stove and burn it open. I like the heat of a woodstove more than the crackle, but you can open that door and have both.

 

I have to agree. If you are serious enough about wanting to heat with wood you will find a way to heat in your masonry fireplace.
OR you could stick with the aesthetics and heat in your basement and hope that will heat most of the upstairs.

 

I'm looking for an older home with more than one fireplace that you could have both a masonry and a stove. This one is kinda' pricey, but it's an example of what homes used to be like. Lots of fireplaces.

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/6618-Forest-Ave-Hammond-IN-46324/99189490_zpid/

That one has 3 fireplaces. One or two could be converted to insert /stove.

 

Yeah. We're working on the basement and there's a stove already down there. We'll use that for now even though I'm not so sure it's a good one. It's a Country Flame 3825 and from what I can tell, from the 1980s.

I'm pretty sure after a season or two, the wife's gonna be all over wood heat and we'll get an insert for the living room. That's how it plays out in my head at least. We'll see how it goes down. She certainly likes sitting by the fireplace when it's going.

 

That sounds good. Some people have fireplaces and don't use them. That is always unimaginable to me.

 

I love a fire as much as anyone. I very rarely run with the front door open. Even for that, the body of the stove still absorbs heat and will radiate it 360 degrees where a fireplace only does 180 degrees of radiant.

 

It's really nice to just have a fire roaring in the evening. I usually have the doors closed if it feels like the rest of the house is getting cooler. There's a whole process of closing bedroom doors and fiddling with the fireplace doors but I worked it out this year (2nd yr in the house). An insert would be nice but it's hard to justify the price considering what we pay for NG. Some day...

 

We added on to the house about 8 years ago and put in a masonry fireplace. I had a wood burner down the basement already. I put a fresh air intake setup on it for the fire to draw air for combustion. I think it works pretty good.

 

We have "cheap" natural gas here too but I still save somewhere around 500-600 a year by heating with wood.

Saving money is nice also its nice to not be dependent on natural gas and electricity for heating.
If the power is out for a few days, I don't have to worry about being cold. Or if we had an earthquake that damaged the gas lines (quite possible)

 

A fireplace will make heat. Yes it might pull air from outside into the house, but so does many wood stoves. Hmmm.....

 

A fireplace is nice no doubt.

 

Top notch...Looks beautiful!!!

 

That mantle is gorgeous too!!!