Open Fireplace Fires -- Who's burning?

[begreen]

If the goal is to cut down the fuel bill while maintaining a nice aesthetic for house resale value, I think an insert is the best bet here.

 

[Razo]

I starting to think more and more that might have to be the route I go. I just have to decide what to do with this woodstove now, either store it and not use it, hook it up in basement in addition to the insert, or sell it.

 

[webby3650]

Here are two reasons I would prefer burning with an EPA approved stove or insert:

• Burning in ONE open fireplace produces about the same emissions as having 2.5 diesel 18 wheeler trucks running full throttle outside your house.
  
  
• Burning in ONE open fireplace produces about the same emissions as 15 EPA certified wood stoves/inserts.

Besides health issues, I like burning less wood than more.

Particulate matter emissions can cause the following health problems:

• Lower respiratory infections (bronchitis and pneumonia), especially for children
• Increase risk of heart attack
• Increase risk of strok

Sources:
http://yolocleanair.org/woodsmoke.htm
http://www.ehhi.org/woodsmoke/health_effects.shtml

Oh Geez! Lighten up!
We are just talking about an occasional fire.

 

[UpstateBill]

Yeah, seriously. If the people who perform those studies have their way, you won't be able to have any woodburning devices in your home, whether it's a woodstove or an open fireplace.

 

[OldLumberKid]

Fireplaces have a heating efficiency of about 5-10% As soon as the fire in the fireplace is dying down it is sucking heat out of the house.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/improve-your-fireplace-efficiency.aspx

Thanks begreen, I only wish I could do an insert, but fireplace is all I have for now, and a lot of hurdles to, well hurdle, before I can get from A to B.

There's a million insert threads, I thought I'd make one for those of us, who for whatever reasons, only have a basic hearth / fireplace, or who like to occasionally "nostalgiate" with an open fireplace.

I realize it's kinda 16th century. I got into it as a heat source backup when I saw how fragile the grid/heat supply was in a storm.

I'm trying to persuade the wife that an insert is the way to go (assuming we don't move to the next town over to larger house to live with M-i-L).

The insert is a challenge here, though. Town code tends to be ridiculously severe, and certificates of occupancy (C of O) restrictions were lowered like a giant boom on home sellers. (Probably to generate code-compliance renovation business for contractors during the recession period when home sales dried up.

I have a nice 34" fireplace cavity with about 19" of tile work in front of it; it's deep, too, but the decorative wood surround is merely 6" away from the fireplace cavity (see the third post in this thread for a photo), which looks like I might have to cut a lot of decorative woodwork off. Not sure there's a way to do that without massacring the surround.
(broken image removed)

Most if not all insert PDFs I've looked at require a lot more clearance to combustibles from the edge of their surrounds than 6" — unless I am reading them wrong, which is a distinct possibility.

As for heat suck ... no argument, either.

Lugging all those hundred pound logs in and out of the van, sawing them, and splitting them by axe was a lot of work (although mostly enjoyable) ... so when I see 8-10 little splits/half splits/quarter splits burn in an evening, I appreciate their therms doubly. But at least on 30-40F days when I use the fireplace, the thermostat does not typically fire up the oil furnace.

 

[begreen]

The insert is more likely to be 24-29 wide. If so that will make the side clearance more like 11-12" maybe? Seems doable, but I don't have any stove specs with me right now.

 

[rideau]

We use ours frequently. Just for atmosphere and to heat up the room it's in when we hang around in that room. I built a Rumford fireplace, and it will drive you out of the room when cranking, if I load it up more than a very few splits. There is no open fireplace that is efficient in wood use when compared with pretty much any stove. But a Rumford comes closest, and it is great to burn oddly-sized and -shaped pieces of tree or long pieces [my fireplace opening is 36" by 36"]. If I were building another place, I would want to build another Rumford there.

That being said, I have been in dozens of homes with standard fireplaces, box shapes really, and everyone in the room will gravitate closer and closer to the fireplace to keep warm. In my living room, people tend to move back from the fireplace.

But still, for heating the house, we use a couple of wood stoves. The fireplace is for fun and atmosphere.

Glad to see someone building a Rumford fireplace. The trick is to get a mason to actually build them well. My Dad built two in Nantucket...one 3 feet, one 5 feet high.

I designed 5 in my central chimney for this home in Southern Ontario. Then I tried to find a mason to build it. Almost tried to get someone fro New England. Finally settled with the person who came most highly recommended...this was before free trade, etc....Stuff could get complicated at the border. Anyway, long story short they put the massive foundation in the wrong place! By a good foot. I would have been better having a solid I beam rather than two interrupted for the foundation....So,naturally, I scrapped the idea of the chimney and filled everything in. Not very happy about that. Seg forward 30 years, and I bought a Woodstock Fireview. Seven years later a Woodstock PH. And I am heating my entire house with it and SO glad I don't have five fireplaces and a furnace flue in the basement.....

But I love those amazing Rumford fireplaces and am delighted you built one. So many are destroying theirs.....

 

[joescho]

I really liked my open fireplace upstairs. It threw a lot of heat. But you can't really leave the house with one burning.
I ended up putting in a pellet insert.

 

[topoftheriver]

I have wood stoves at home and at my hunting camp. I still like a crackling fire in my "open fireplace" , sit aside from it with my honey, a beer or glass of wine, maybe even some bourbon, and of course, my guitar, playing some country ballard and wooing my women in comfort. Sure the woodstove keeps us warm. But the fireplace keeps us loving!

 

[VelvetAlley]

Thanks for this thread. I was excited to find this website but all of it was devoted to Wood Stoves and every variation of them. I have a late 50's house in San Diego. My fireplace is average, red brick on the exterior part of the building. I came here looking for ways to spruce it up a bit. Unfortunately the brick on the interior of the house was painted white long ago. I made an attempt to sand it off but I ran into too many problems to justify the labor. I settled to tile it (I hate tile on chimney's but I hate white painted brick more). This winter I've used my fireplace about 3 times a week. Love it.

Blessings.

 

[OldLumberKid]

Thanks for this thread. I was excited to find this website but all of it was devoted to Wood Stoves and every variation of them. I have a late 50's house in San Diego. My fireplace is average, red brick on the exterior part of the building. I came here looking for ways to spruce it up a bit. Unfortunately the brick on the interior of the house was painted white long ago. I made an attempt to sand it off but I ran into too many problems to justify the labor. I settled to tile it (I hate tile on chimney's but I hate white painted brick more). This winter I've used my fireplace about 3 times a week. Love it.

Blessings.View attachment 124790

Nice, but I would'n'a hung those combustible socks quite so close. Sounds like you made it though or you wouldn't be posting.

P.S. The rest of us probably go to places like San Diego to escape the need for heating altogether, so this is very interesting.

 

[VelvetAlley]

Hanging your socks over the fireplace is very old school. I kept checking them to make sure they weren't getting to critical mass.

My Dad bought a sailboat once with a tiny wood burning stove on it. It was a 32 foot boat, so you can believe how small that stove was. Anyway, I love having a fireplace, I love having my humble stack of wood in my backyard. I love how warm the room gets when I get that sucker going.

It doesn't matter how cold it makes the rest of the house because "Cold" at the most is 50 degrees and the central heat takes care of that.

 

[burr]

hey kid, my den looks very similar to yer photo above and I had clearance issues too and I was able to squeeze a Buck27000 (or maybe28000) into that opening. With a little bit of custom metalwork, the flue was routed up the chute. And I made a screen so I can open the doors wide for the fireplace effect. First season it was pretty much 'bra and panties' sittin in that glow, since, Ive learned to regulate the heat much mo better (dang).

 

[jharkin]

Glad to see someone building a Rumford fireplace. The trick is to get a mason to actually build them well. My Dad built two in Nantucket...one 3 feet, one 5 feet high.

I designed 5 in my central chimney for this home in Southern Ontario. Then I tried to find a mason to build it. Almost tried to get someone fro New England. Finally settled with the person who came most highly recommended...this was before free trade, etc....Stuff could get complicated at the border. Anyway, long story short they put the massive foundation in the wrong place! By a good foot. I would have been better having a solid I beam rather than two interrupted for the foundation....So,naturally, I scrapped the idea of the chimney and filled everything in. Not very happy about that. Seg forward 30 years, and I bought a Woodstock Fireview. Seven years later a Woodstock PH. And I am heating my entire house with it and SO glad I don't have five fireplaces and a furnace flue in the basement.....

But I love those amazing Rumford fireplaces and am delighted you built one. So many are destroying theirs.....

Amen.

For those interested in th history of Rumfords and how they are designed this short book is a great read -
The Forgotten Art of Building A Good Fireplace.

Ive got two wonderful rumfords in this house in addition to the woodstove. No early american house should be without good working traditional fireplace IMHO. Do I use them for serious heating? heck no. But for coziness on a cold winter night they cant be beat, and built right they can cook you out of a small room.

I agree we need to chill out. Haivng 2 or 3 or 5 open fireplace fires a year isn't going to kill the earth.

 

[OldLumberKid]

Hanging your socks over the fireplace is very old school. I kept checking them to make sure they weren't getting to critical mass.

My Dad bought a sailboat once with a tiny wood burning stove on it. It was a 32 foot boat, so you can believe how small that stove was. Anyway, I love having a fireplace, I love having my humble stack of wood in my backyard. I love how warm the room gets when I get that sucker going.

It doesn't matter how cold it makes the rest of the house because "Cold" at the most is 50 degrees and the central heat takes care of that.

I can, I was looking at an inexpensive houseboat the other year and that might work well there, but it was in a "principality" that most likely has rules against burning wood in a semi-urban environment, as it has rules against doing all kinds of things.

I keep forgetting VelvetAlley... you're in San Diego. Those kinds of temps are hard to get my head around.

hey kid, my den looks very similar to yer photo above and I had clearance issues too and I was able to squeeze a Buck27000 (or maybe28000) into that opening. With a little bit of custom metalwork, the flue was routed up the chute. And I made a screen so I can open the doors wide for the fireplace effect. First season it was pretty much 'bra and panties' sittin in that glow, since, Ive learned to regulate the heat much mo better (dang).

Ha, pretty much how i felt the other night, 'xcept I don't wear a bra or panties, and the wife is too modest these days, but just tending that fireplace made it T-shirt weather inside for a while.

Your post inspired me to look up the Buck products. May be one there that meets my clearance issues.

Particulate matter emissions can cause the following health problems:

• Lower respiratory infections (bronchitis and pneumonia), especially for children
• Increase risk of heart attack
• Increase risk of strok

Sources:
http://yolocleanair.org/woodsmoke.htm
http://www.ehhi.org/woodsmoke/health_effects.shtml

Fair enough. After clearing up that ash I had a mild asthma attack the other night. Not fun. it's something to consider. My friend, who has some severe allergies,had a similar issue in a house with an insert the other night.

I'm wondering do even folk who have asthma and inserts face issues with smoke, or do the inserts cut down on the ash dust and smoke so effectively ?

 

[isipwater]

"Fair enough. After clearing up that ash I had a mild asthma attack the other night. Not fun. it's something to consider. My friend, who has some severe allergies,had a similar issue in a house with an insert the other night.

I'm wondering do even folk who have asthma and inserts face issues with smoke, or do the inserts cut down on the ash dust and smoke so effectively ?"


I burn with a wood stove and have moderate asthma. I have only been burning for 3 months but so far have not experienced any asthma problems related to burning wood.

To minimize any potential asthma problems, I try to:

-Burn only dry wood. Using a moisture meter is my preferred way to test for wood dryness.

-Burn hot fires with constant flame (except for the ember stage) to avoid smoldering fires.

-Gently remove ash with minimal ash disturbance. This can be done with a simple shovel and bucket but care must be made when moving the ash.

-Using a stove that produces a low amount of particulate matter. I use a Lopi Endeavor which only produces 1.9 grams of smoke per hour, vs. an open fireplace that produces about 45 grams of smoke per hour.

 

[mass_burner]

Thanks, that send me on a whole expedition around the net, after googling Rumford fireplace -- very interesting. Some amazing fireplaces, including some decidedly medieval peasant-home-like fabrications:
(broken image removed)

and even a (broken link removed to http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/21/claires-31-oven-42-rumford-fireplace-13442-2.html) or two -- well I am pondering an outside mini brick fireplace, so it was a good ideafest.

(broken link removed to http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/21/claires-31-oven-42-rumford-fireplace-13442-2.html)

And there were also some amazing dogs like this wonderful mix, of course, in front of one of those fireplaces.

nice photo, good composition.

 

[mass_burner]

we have a large FP in our cape house, 4W x 3H. in fall/spring when we come back from fishing its nice to sit on the hearth. Even cook in there sometimes, I made a metal 3-tier gizmo that would slide under the grate, the second tier was the grill, and the third tier was a warming rack. A big timber fell on it and crumpled it, but it was just a proto type, pretty easy to make.

When a big fire is it it, its such a waste of wood. Pellet cages work well though.