Fireplace Inserts....

[Noahs ARK]

Every home we've owned has had a wood burning fireplace. They're worthless during the winter, so I only use them during the Spring & Fall.

I would LOVE a wood-burning stove, but since we already have a fireplace we're thinking of buying a fireplace insert.

I want one that comes out far enough that I can cook on the top of it.

Does anyone here have one?

[mgriffith]

I would LOVE a wood-burning stove, but since we already have a fireplace we're thinking of buying a fireplace insert.

I want one that comes out far enough that I can cook on the top of it.


You can use one of those box wood stoves and route the pipe up the chimney. You can cook on those, but they are not air tight and some smoke and fumes will leak into the room from time to time although it won't be dangerous. They are also dirty when cleaning out the ashes.

Mark

[Noahs ARK]

You can use one of those box wood stoves and route the pipe up the chimney. You can cook on those, but they are not air tight and some smoke and fumes will leak into the room from time to time although it won't be dangerous. They are also dirty when cleaning out the ashes.

Mark

Thank you!

Do the woodburning stoves leak or are they airtight? Cuz I may have to re-think the f/p insert if it leaks.

[signseeker]

We have a woodburning stove at the cabin and it seems to be airtight. (Not really sure what that means, though...:001_unsure: ) Smoke doesn't come in the room or anything. And we found a pan thingey for the top so guess who's having stove-top bacon and eggs and French Toast in a couple weeks! :l0 (32):

[mgriffith]

Thank you!

Do the woodburning stoves leak or are they airtight? Cuz I may have to re-think the f/p insert if it leaks.

When I say "leak" I mean that sometimes the seams around the stove on these older box wood designs open up and they leak smoke, on some occasions. Also, when you take off the burner plates on the top to cook with them, smoke and fumes sometimes come out into the room. I've added a picture of one below.

The result is your room may have a faint odor of smoke, but it is not much and by no means dangerous. Some people don't like that though. The newer wood burning stove are airtight so nothing escapes into the room and all burn gases exit out the flue.

You'll notice in the picture that there is a handle on the top, and two round burner plates. You can sit a pot directly on the top and cook stews and soups and such, but if you need more heat, like to fry something, you take off one or both of those plates exposing the fire below, and put your fry pan or whatever over the open hole. You can also slide the whole top off to load wood from there if you wish.

The result of this exposing the fire is that changes in air pressure because of the sudden change in the draft causes small puffs of smoke and burning gases get into your house. This really can't be avoided but you can minimize it by making sure you have a good draft going all the time.

I use a stove like this in my garage for heat and also making hot chocolate when I'm working out there. I have also used stoves like this and other designs over the years and they put out a good amount of heat, but to be honest, the newer stoves are much more efficient. But any type of wood stove that you can cook on and can be placed inside a room will have limitations like this.

There are two sizes of this type of stove. The smaller one would be fine for heating a room, even a large room. Using a wood stove for heat is, for modern people of today, a time consuming and dirty job, and stoves like this one are dangerous around children. A load of wood filling the stove will last a couple of hours at the most if you maintain a good draft and don't damper it down. Many times people (both today and in the old days) would fill the stove and close the dampers so the fire will smolder for a long time, putting out very little heat, but enough to maintain room warmth. This causes A LOT of smoke to come from the chimney, and also will cause creosote build up and a possible chimney fire. I don't like to do that, but I understand someone not wanting to maintain the fire all the time. If you do this, sometimes the fire will go out so you need to know (from experience) how much you can damper the fire and still keep it going.

A stove like this could also be used inside a tent, but they are heavy (70-80 pounds), and cost about $150.

I hope this helps.

Mark

[Noahs ARK]

When I say "leak" I mean that sometimes the seams around the stove on these older box wood designs open up and they leak smoke, on some occasions. Also, when you take off the burner plates on the top to cook with them, smoke and fumes sometimes come out into the room. I've added a picture of one below.

*snip* I hope this helps.

Mark

Yes, it does help - thanks!

One of the things that really bothers me about our woodburning fireplace is the smoke. I get terrible headaches after about 12 hours and it makes no sense to keep windows open while trying to heat the house.

So I guess my 1st choice would be something airtight for inside the house and a box wood stove for the garage, where there would be more ventilation.

I want to tell all you fine people how much I appreciate all your responses to my questions. I'm learning so much here!

[Buffie]

I want a wood burning stove too, and my hubby says no. I'll have to use my spider and iron cookware and rough it cooking in the fireplace. I once volunteered at a historic home for a Christmas program about Pioneers Christmas and got to see real fireplace cooking. The woman who did it pulled hot embers forward on the hearth and set the iron skillet on them. This provided enough heat to cook pastries. I guess this method would also work for eggs. My granny used a wood stove all the time and her meals were great.

[DMGNUT]

On this same topic (kind of), does anyone know much about a pellet burning insert, put into where a wood burning fireplace was.
There is one of these in the house we are buying.
I don't know anything about them... efficiency, cost to operate (buying the pellets), etc.
I do know the pellet stove can be removed, and the chimney sleeve (as it was referred to) that was installed for the use of the pellet stove, can be removed as well, to return the fireplace to wood burning again, but I'm guessing this was put in because it was deemed to be an improvement over wood burning (whether it was supposed to be more cost effective, cleaner to use, or more efficient, I don't know).
Just hoping that with the vast knowledge base here, someone might know something about these pellets stoves.

[arbilad]

I would say get it inspected by a chimney sweep company. Our pellet stove setup passed house inspection, but afterwards it stopped drawing air. We called in a chimney sweep company and discovered that the pellet stove was installed with the wrong venting and was actively dangerous to use. So we're using the propane central heating until we decide if we want to pay $1500 to totally change the venting.

[DMGNUT]

Wow... total bummer.
This one looks like its been in there for a while, so I'm hoping it's "good-to-go"... as with yours, it passed the home inspection.
On the bright side, we have a natural gas furnace that heats the whole house anyways, but this is in the large family room down stairs.
And there are already several 50# bags of pellets in the garage too.
I think we'll do what you suggested and get an inspection by a chimney/fireplace/pellet stove company... just to be sure it's functioning properly.
Thanks.

[DMGNUT]

So... our pellet insert is an older model from a local company that's no longer in business, so it might be difficult to get parts if something ever goes wrong, but it passed inspection and we're using it... and I must say that I love it!
Seems like a bag of pellets will last several days and it'll almost heat the whole house (upstairs is noticeably cooler, but not too bad) and it only produces a small handful of ashes after a couple weeks worth of use (burns very efficiently), and the 40 or 50 lb bags of pellets are only $6 or $7 each.
Also have heard from the owners who built the house in 1980 (they lived here till 2002 and are still in the ward and I'm their Home Teacher), and that's the thing they most miss about this house. They're in a huge mansion now and were convinced when they built their new place to go with a gas fireplace, which although is more convenient, they don't enjoy it nearly as much.

[DMGNUT]

The bags are actually only 40# but I'm finding them at D&B Supply, Tractor Supply, Home Depot and Lowes for anywhere from $4.99 to $5.49 per bag. :cool (2):

[arbilad]

The pellets also make great kitty litter, although I wouldn't clean the litter box into the pellet stove. Bad stuff would happen.

[DMGNUT]

The pellets also make great kitty litter, although I wouldn't clean the litter box into the pellet stove. Bad stuff would happen.

:glare: :l0 (51): :coool:

Although we love the pellet stove and like having it lit just to be in the room and watch the flames, we're finding that the outside temp actually has to be in the mid 20s or lower, or it heats the house up too much, even when it's on the very lowest settings (for both the pellet feeder and the fan/blower).
If we use it exclusively (and last week was the first time we actually used it at all), a bag (#40) will last about 3 days... went and bought a dozen bags on Sat.
Only draw back to the pellet stove is the pellet feeder and the blower are obviously electric, so if the power goes out... bummer.
Might have to finally look at some kind of small generator... or figure out how to manually feed pellets without a power source.
I've pretty much always prepped with the goal of not wanting or needing a power source (except having 40 to 50 gallons of gasoline on hand, so my truck would be available for emergencies... but only on a very short term/limited basis).
And by the way... these pellet stoves are really nothing more than a modernized (ie., automated) rocket stove.

[kgrigio]

Go to http://www.hearth.com/talk/ This is a great resource for all things fireplace and wood burning stove. In our last house we had a free standing wood burning stove from the 70's. It wasn't the most efficient and the surrounding walls weren't built to code. I did extensive research on the hearth form on what I needed to do to fix the issues. After my boss's house burned down during the middle of winter due to a wood burning stove that wasn't up to code, I kicked my stove remodel into high gear. I put in a new free standing stove, new chimney pipe and redid the surrounding walls that were the biggest code violators. I would give anything to get my old stove back. My new home has a wood burning insert and the person that inspected it said it was a terrible wood burner and shouldn't ever be used. Most people that install the cheap version in my current home, install them for decoration and not for burning fires. Once I get all my other home projects done, I plan on scouring hearth.com again to see what options I have.

[DMGNUT]

Don't know if there's much for me to do at this point, as the pellet stove we have is an insert that was put into a large and nice (read, "massive" brick fireplace).
It would be a much bigger undertaking than I want to mess with, to try to change over to a free standing wood stove at this point.
But I really like the website you linked to.
By the way, go to "introductions" and tell us a little about yourself.
In the meantime, welcome to the site.