Wood Stove in front of, or in, fireplace

[Woodsroad]

Now that I've cleared the fire brick from inside my granite fireplace, I can see that the fire brick was added later on, perhaps in an attempt to burn coal in the fireplace. Either way, it opened up the fireplace a good bit, and now it would be possible to put my Jotul F3 in the opening, with about 11" clearance on all sides, and 18" behind.
Question: Is it viable to put the stove in the fireplace opening, or am I better off putting it in front of the opening. It would seem that I would get much better heat radiation if the stove is out front, but it would be nice to have a little more space in the room...

Thanks again,

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I imagine that you would have quite a bit more heat from a stove out in the room.

If you want more room, maybe a dedicated insert would be a better choice?

Matt

 

[Woodsroad]

That is my opinion as well.
The only benefit that I can see is that the fireplace mass would get heated more with he stove inside the opening. I don't see how there would be any more heat loss, but there certainly would be less radiation.

 

[BrotherBart]

Half of my stove is in the fireplace and half out front. The stored heat in the brick work is great and lasts for two or three hours after the stove goes out. When it is burning the blower mounted on the heat shield in the back blows straight across the top of the stove delivering heat clear across the bottom floor of the house.

And right up the stairway to the second floor.

 

[Woodsroad]

Ah, good to know.

It would be very easy to put a small fan behind the stove. It would also be easy to put a coil of 3/4" copper pipe up around the flue pipe, piped right into the upstairs send of our gravity-fed hot water radiator heating system.

I guess that my hesitation is that we will initially lose too much radiated heat to the fireplace mass, and that it will take too long to get the heat going out of the stove and into the room. I really like the idea of heating this big thermal mass of a stone fireplace. Sort of how our gravity-fed hot water heat system works. LOTS of thermal mass...4" pipe manifolds around the basement feeding big radiators upstairs. Takes a little while to get hot, but glides all day long at a steady temp once it's there.

It's a dmned nice looking stove...I really shouldn't hide it...maybe some low level accent lighting up below the flue....

 

[wg_bent]

go with an insert. Maybe a soapstone Hearthstone, or a Jotul, or Hampton. Really nice looking stoves. I also like my Osburn. Really nice fire view.