Hello everyone. I've been thinking a while about putting an insert in my fireplace and finally have the money to do so. I have a couple questions about them. What is the benefit in getting one with a catalytic combustor? Is it worth getting one with a CC? This job seems pretty straightforward and something I can do myself. Any tricks to getting an insert into the house and up onto the hearth by myself? I really don't want to hire anyone to do that and no friends close by. Are far as brands go I have barely started looking at them. I want something that looks similar to my low profile fireplace glass doors. What are the most reliable brands? Thanks in advance.
Others here know a lot more than me about cat stoves and stoves in general. I went with a non-cat, as that is what I am familiar with. My installer, Regency stove dealer, said that the burn times are longer with a cat stove, thus use less wood, and the flame is more muted. Our stove as been running 24/7 during fall/winter/early spring over the last two years. It can heat our home, a four level split, with a few caveats. If it is well below zero, it requires loading wood every 4 hours while we are in the house to keep our thermostat at 68 or above. If it is 0-15f we can get 5-6 hours. If it is 15 -25f we can go for over 7 hours, and furnace often kicks in as the morning load, or after work load as the stove is really getting going from coals. If it is 25f and above we can really stretch the cycle, or the house will get too hot for us to be comfortable. I can get a fire going from coals after at least 10 hours depending on the wood. All that being said we have small electric base board in our bedroom that my wife like to put on low for overnights when it is very cold outside. I could turn off the furnace completely and we would be fairly comfortable with the insert only, but I like to keep the furnace on stand-by to even things out a bit in the house in terms of consistency in temperature. Plus I don’t feel the need to get up in the middle of the night to load the stove when cold, like I probably would have done when I was younger.I only typically sleep 5-6 hours most nights anyways. It has been a good investment for us, and we really enjoy it a lot, as I am sure you will.
Catalytic wood burning appliances Catalytic wood burning appliances Here is a good discussion on cat vs non cat Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I burn from Oct. to mid February when the wood runs out, sometimes I make it to March. I go through about 6 cords with my open fireplace, burning all day on most days. Mostly soft maple and birch or fir btu range. How much wood do you think you go through from oct to march? Our temps usually stay in the upper 30s to low 40s for most of the winter. We just had 10 day stretch of teens and low 20s, I burnt through almost a whole cord of fir in that time. Really surprised me how fast it went. Burns hot but once the flame is gone its pretty much out.
Whew, that's a lot of wood. You are going to get some good advice soon about getting an insert, or putting in a wood stove (if setup allows).
6 cords not lasting through March and your only heating a house… that’s a lot of wood by industry standards. You need to upgrade your set up. Knowing what I know now, I would look at a cat or hybrid insert. They output heat longer and use less wood doing it. If you can, get a free standing wood stove. The firebox is generally larger then an insert. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Our insert uses a lot less wood than our old open fireplace with doors, which really didn’t heat much at all. I will probably burn up to 5 cord if it is a normal winter for us. It is pretty cold here most winters with many days and nights well below zero. But can’t be sure yet since the stove was installed early January of 2021 and I am still getting a feel for how much we will need from October through at least part of April depending on the weather. I just got home from work and loaded the stove with some splits of silver maple since it is 32f ahead our snow tonight before it goes back below zero into the weekend. I had coals left from loading the stove with birch and sugar maple at 4 AM, over 1o hours later. The stove wasn’t too warm, but I didn’t hear the furnace start up either. We set our thermostat at 67f.
Just from that I can tell we're in the same part of the country. Open fireplaces are terribly inefficient. You'll probably go through half as much wood with an insert and actually get more heat. My insert handles about 90% of my heating needs and I go through 3-4 cords a year. My parents, my neighbor, and a buddy of mine all heat primarily with wood and all go through 3-4 cords.
They sure are. I like an open fireplace because I can watch the fire burn but with the temps as cold as they were the heat output just isn't enough. And as much as I like chopping wood, it would be nice to be able to decrease my workload a little. I'm about 15 miles north of Seattle, what part of the NW are you in? What kind of wood do you burn most?
I'm in the Lake Goodwin area of Snohomish County. You'll still get a good view of the fire with a secondary air stove. My supply is usually some combo of fir, maple, alder, and hemlock. There's been a couple years when I've had a bunch of birch too. Do you have a masonry fireplace? Prefab fireplaces can take a little research to determine what insert is allowed, if any.
6 cords, open fireplace, yeah, there's a lot of waste with that. BTDT In SE Wisconsin, ~1600 sq ft open concept ranch house. We tried heating with the open fireplace and the heatilator blower rack. It was inefficient. I put my quadrafire 4100i insert in about 5 years ago in the fireplace opening. Did it myself with a hand from my buddy. They are heavy and awkward. The SS liner is awkward too, but once it's done, it's really rewarding. My wife didn't want to give up the flames either. My stove has a 3 pane bow front. It was a great choice. It actually heats the entire house. It easily does 90%+ of the heating in the house. The gas furnace does the rest. 4 cords heats the house for the entire season.
I thought I might add, our 1952 fireplace had black stuff on the walls and it was stinky for me, more creosite'ish, I used a stiff dry brush then later some chemicals on one spot with little success. We ended up using black high temp stove paint in it. Looks a lot better than red brick with black soot and it killed the smell.
