Fire places..Love or hate them?

I've been looking for a house and one of my main detractors from buying a lot of them has been when I walk into the living room/family room and there is a giant fire place exactly where the TV is supposed to go. Or there is a corner one making the floor plan super awkward.

Fuck these things. They are fun in a novelty way, but I never use it. The wood ones are dirty and you need to get them cleaned, and the gas ones just spike your gas bill.

 

Best thing for a fireplace is a gas insert. Otherwise, yep. Fuck those things.

 

If you don't like fire places they don't like you either.

 

Havin grown up in a house that had 2 fire places and a wood stove for heat. The person responsible for keep the fires going did not need heat because he was warm from working all the time. So, fuck a fire place, fuck cutting wood. LOL but I still miss those days

 

I've always loved fireplaces, or wood stoves. The advantage to a fireplace is usually that the view of the actual fire is more open so easier to watch the flames dance around. The advantage of a wood stove is that the chimney is almost always entirely inside the room (fireplace chimneys are usually external to the house) and so almost all of the heat generated actually stays in the room/house, so you get maximum heating.

Pellet stoves are a reasonable alternative, as far as heat goes. My In-Laws have a pellet stove, and they do heat very well. I prefer the whole ambiance to a wood burning <whatever>, so I have no interest in pellet stoves. They are much cleaner, but I'll gladly clean up a little ash and wood scraps now and then in exchange for the smell and sight of an actual wood fire. Brings back a lifetime of awesome memories of going hunting with my dad.

 

I love my wood stove. I love my natural gas centralized heat even more.

 

I put a Buck wood burning insert in my fireplace 30 years ago. I burn 1 to 2 cords of wood every winter depending on how cold it is. I've never paid for wood, someone is always asking me to come and get a tree blown down by a storm or something. I keep about a 2 year supply, wood burns better if it ages in a dry area for at least 6 months to a year.

My gas bill is 1/3 what my neighbors pay. About the only time the central heat comes on are those days where it is a little cool in the morning, but will warm up too much later in the day to start a fire. When it is cold enough to keep a fire going 24/7 the central heat almost never comes on. The living area and kitchen stay toasty warm and the bedrooms down the hall are nice and cool for sleeping. I bought the tools to clean mine every year myself. I REALLY like burning wood.

 

If you like the rest of the property, check the fireplace closely for how it is installed. Many homes in the last 50 years have units pretty easy to to remove, only needing some cosmetic work to make it like it never happened.

 

Without a fireplace, Santa has to break through the front door like a common criminal

 

yes but only the gas ones I can turn on with a remote. Im lazy like that.

 

On topic though, we live in an old Craftsman style house built in 1926. Somewhere along the way, someone got rid of the chimney and bricked up the inside of the fireplace. So the face of it and mantle is still there, but it's basically just for show. My wife likes to decorate it though, so I guess it serves a purpose.

 

We put in a pellet stove. It's a wood burning stove that's more efficient because of the wood pellets. With the lowest setting, it'll burn 1lb of pellet an hour. A 40# bag costs $4. I feel it's pretty economical...

 

My 1960 rambler was never built with one.

I have one of those fake electric fireplaces built into my entertainment console. Turns out I like that a lot better. If I want to burn sticks I go outside where I can throw a pork butt over it.

 

Check around and find where the closest pallet manufacturer is located to you. Ours sells a pickup truck bed full of end pieces for $5. Stacked correctly they will fully dry out in 6-12 months, and do not roll out of the fireplace. As a bonus, if you till the ground underneath where they were stacked you will grow tomato plants that will produce massive amounts of tomatoes well into August!

 

We absolutely love our fireplace. We designed ours to use a Rumsford box design and it throws out a lot of heat.

Info on the design: The Rumford fireplace is a tall, shallow fireplace designed by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an Anglo-American physicist best known for his investigations of heat. Its shallow, angled sides are designed to reflect heat into the room, and its streamlined throat minimizes turbulence, thereby carrying away smoke with little loss of heated room air.

 

My wood stove saves me about $450 in heating oil every winter so though it's some work I love it.

 

Agree that they suck balls. I would rather not have a house with one.

 

I love our wood stove. Wouldn’t own a house without one. Little bit of work but can’t beat it.
This was our log truck load last year. Had about the same this year.

 

I always thought it was a nice addition to a big house but yeah, not an especially practical one, you're doing 450 worth of parts and labor to use each winter.

 

I live in a small log house. It's worth it and with a circulator fan on it it heats 2 of the 3 rooms. So to each their own.