Fireplace vs. Wood Stove

Stoves and inserts each have their good points. If you have an existing FP to fill, and don't want to take the old fp apart, only an insert will do . With a fan, there's no noise difference between the two. Aesthetically, an insert will look better than a stove, but most inserts are not great for cooking.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

To be honest, I had pretty much made up my mind before this thread to just say the heck with the FP and just put in a stove, but you bring up some valid points. Definitely not a done deal, yet.

 

There are many examples of folks using stoves instead of inserts with fireplaces that didn't destroy the fireplace. Most of these require rear flue stoves but if the FP is big enough some can make a vertical work. Some stoves are partially inserted into the firebox of a FP and some set on a hearth. You're not stuck with an insert.

 

I am going to look at the house again on Friday to start planning some pre-move in projects. I will take some more detailed pics, but I think I may be able to use a rear flue stove and not have to do much work to the FP. Either way, I will snap some pics of the land.

 

Still recovering from the holiday weekend, but here are a couple pics of the "back 40", really only about 1.5 acres of free space. The total lot is ~2 acres, which is smaller than we wanted, but what can you do, especially this close to Albuquerque. You will notice that it was previously used for growing grass hay, but I like to think of it more as a blank slate. I have already started the plans for all of the enclosures, structures, functional areas, etc. and may start a different thread to bring you all along. One major difference with this property is that it is down by the river, in farm country. This suits our long term goals better than being in the mountains, so I will just have to drive a little bit farther to haul wood. No biggie, I will just make a whole day of the exercise instead of getting a few hours to run the saw. The last pic is a Google Earth image showing that our neighbor to the North is a 2 acre parcel of hay, which is great, and we have an irrigation ditch running due East, which we have rights to use.