Please help! I'm completely lost....

[Ashful]

Don't expect to get much radiant heat from it, as fireplaces are usually just for looks.

Dead wrong. Our ancestors heated their houses solely with fireplaces until the late 18th century, and many of us still do. In fact, a fireplace has the capacity to throw more radiant heat than almost any stove you can buy today, at the cost of low efficiency and shorter burn times.

If you expect heat: a fireplace simply gives off a bit of radiant heat but the majority goes up the chimney. An insert will allow you to effectively heat an area with wood within the open area of a fireplace.

Better.

A fireplace is decorative and can be fun, but it really isn't a very effective way to heat the house. You lose almost as much heat up the chimney as you get from burning the wood.

An insert will make the fireplace into an effective part of your home heating system. You'll get much longer burns from the same amount of wood, and you'll lose a lot less heat up the flue (chimney). Of course the insert will be much more expensive than the minimal stuff necessary that a couple of previous posters listed.

Correct!

A fireplace is actually an EXCELLENT way to heat the room in which it is located, but unfortunately it does so at the expense of the rest of the house. I grew up in a house with four fireplaces, so I know of what I speak. Fireplaces can throw an enormous amount of radiant heat, but the make-up air requirements causes rooms distant from the fireplace to go cold, drawing air from outside thru windows, receptacles, and other points of draft, to supply the fireplace requirement.

I enjoyed very much heating with fireplaces, but the wood usage was very substantial (eg. 20 cords per year), and they must be tended frequently. You cannot get a 12 hour burn time from a fireplace, but I do just that daily with my woodstoves.

Unless you need to offset the cost of your central heating, I'd just plan to use those open fireplaces a year or two for ambience during evenings on the couch, to see how you enjoy the whole wood processing and woodburning experience. If you find you're into it, then maybe it's time to invest in a stove or insert, for the purpose of serious heating. I am able to cut my oil usage in half (or better) by burning wood, but it is a lot of work, likely beyond the interest of most folks.

 

[begreen]

The ambiance of a fireplace is great, the heating not so great. To heat, a smart old home might have smaller rooms with a fireplace in each room and if they were very smart they insulated the walls with whatever was available (sawdust, cornhusks, etc.) They also lived in colder homes. I would love to see you try to heat that lodge with its fireplaces. It would take a staff of butlers full time and it would still be a chilly barn.

Fireplaces are not efficient. Our ancestors used them because they hadn't come up with a better alternative yet. When they found good alternatives they left the fireplace so fast it would make one's head spin. Many were being bricked up by the early 1900s or not installed at all. I've been in my ancestors homes from the 1700s. It was so hard to heat their NY houses that they moved into the basement for the winter. The fireplaces were for shoulder season heating only. Fireplaces may radiate nicely while the fire is blazing, but after that they are sucking warm air out of the room.

 

[smelm0]

you've posed an interesting question as in prior times peeps thought a fireplace and its romance was the cats meow.
in reality, fireplaces burn full out which allows for all kinds of variables, that is the condition of the wood. in a general sense, the drier the betterer.
that said, I've been burning wood, coal for decades. I mostly use wood and until my 66th yr harvested it as my neighbor has about 168 acres of "wild forest" for me to utilize.
what ultimately u need to eval is simply what you and your better half want. if its heat, you definitely need an insert of some sort. using wood, you should know is very labor intensive and high maintenance as you move along. I have for instance, a wood stove in my basement that I'm able to get reasonably well heat from for 12 hr runs. that's very long. in general, wood burns are 4 hrs or so and then need tending. up you up to that?
my thought is that you'd b better off long term with a pellet stove insert. the harman at the high end is 4k or more but there are lots of cheaper ways to go. I have a free standing englander vented thru a fireplace masonry chimney and am getting lots of warmth and good looks at its flame with, and this is vital, very little labor.
buying bags and vac'ing out the unit daily is about the full extent. the rest is pure delight. runs and makes heat and if looking at the vision panel makes for romance. very economical and environmental.
after futzing with wood, its dirt and weight and condition, this is a simple solution.