The Facts - The Current Setup:
1. We have a gas fireplace upstairs and downstairs. No real fire - just gas fake flames and a little heat - maybe. Both are 2003 models of a Lennox insert. We've been told some of the Lennox units from that era were about ambiance and not about heat. They do not put out much heat! Tons of cold air comes in around them during the winter. I think it has to do with the venting to the outside. I did put up magnetic "blankets" to block the cold air and I've stacked a dozen or more quilts in front of them but I still feel a real breeze coming through.
This is the downstairs fireplace but they both look pretty close to the same. The upstairs may be a bit larger.
2. The first winter I was here alone, I used the gas fireplace upstairs when I was sitting and stitching right next to it. There was some heat but not much and I went through a LOT of propane. That is an older, less efficient unit and I think you get about 2 hours run time on 1 gallon of propane. We had a 250 gallon propane tank at the time and I couldn't believe that in just a couple of weeks, it was down substantially. We turned it off. closed off the pilots on both of them and haven't used them since.
3. If the power was off and it was freezing, we could probably make beds right in front of them and not freeze to death but that's about it.
4. With a heat pump, our house is NEVER warm. This winter, we had three small room type electric heaters
More Facts - The Future Possibilities.
1. I have wanted a wood stove for as long as I can remember. We've only had one house that didn't have a real fireplace. But, I would much prefer a wood stove to a fireplace.
2. I think Vince sees the value in having something that gives off more heat and something that we can use when/if the electricity is off for an extended time.
3. Today we stopped by a fireplace shop and talked to the people.
If we get one, I think this is the one we'll get - the Endeavor by Lopi but, the red Vermont Castings stoves really are begging to come home with me.
I wouldn't get tired of red but Vince might.
The best part, besides warm heat, no drafts and the sound and view of a fire would be having a pot of stew or beans or chili simmering every day on the stove. I'm always downstairs and I have to go upstairs a million times a day with something cooking on the stove. OK . . there is a stove in the basement but it has canners on every burner. I leave them there even when I'm not canning. Sounds pretty lazy, huh?
The fireplace people are coming out Monday to check it all out and see if an installation is going to be as easy as I made it sound. I'm sure the answer to that is no because, as you know, I have no idea what I'm talking about - especially when it comes to wood stoves.
Questions:
I understand that not everyone loves a fireplace or wood stove. I know not everyone wants to deal with bringing firewood in on a cold, icy night or tromping through the snow to get firewood. We would keep some of it very close to the house and keep it covered. I know we're all different. I do not mind throwing logs on a fire. I don't mind pulling the ash drawer out and dumping wood ashes in my garden.
We added the greenhouse a few years ago and it's just too hard/expensive to keep it warm during the cold nights of early spring so we aren't using it for much. It's about three steps away from the concrete patio so I figure we could keep some amount of wood in there and that would keep it dry so on rainy/snowy nights, we could grab wood out of the greenhouse.
It has been 45 or more years since I had a wood stove. What am I not thinking about that I will wish I had remembered? Are we too old to be doing this?
I have called our insurance company and it's less than $100 more per year added to our annual premium if we add a wood stove so that isn't a consideration.
One of the biggest thoughts for me is electricity. I don't feel like our grid is reliable. In the summer, we could survive in the basement without a/c. In the winter, with no heat, we could not survive - some winters. Not all of our winters get down to zero for multiple nights. Some do. In the six winters we've been here, about half of them have had multiple nights below zero. About half of them, it rarely got down to the teens. Who knows? I would feel like with the wood stove, we could stay warm in the winter; with the basement, we could survive in the summer so, for me it's about getting rid of these drafty gas inserts; having warm air, and having a way to cook/heat water if we needed it.
Thanks if you're still reading this far down and thanks for any info/thoughts you care to share.
Years ago, we installed an insert in our fireplace that had a blower. It kept our house toasty. We thought about installing a pellet stove into our dual sided gas log fireplace. The cost for converting the worthless chimney for the new stove was more than we could justify at the time. (It’s a 2 story). I miss having a fire.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be interested to hear what you decide. BTW, I love the red! Is it a Vermont Castings? I’ve always loved their designs.
Yes, the red one is Vermont Castings. Our inserts are both Lennox and the fireplace guys said the ones from the early 2000's never did put out much heat. I feel like with the cold air coming in around them, having them going lets in more cold than heat they produced. We're wanting to put the wood stove in the basement so the two story worthless chimney (good description) will have to be converted. They won't know until they look at it if they will have to remove the upstairs insert too and that will mean removing the mantle and hearth, probably replacing the carpet in that room and having to do sheetrock work and repaint the whole room.
DeleteI'm not opposed to leaving the fireplace with the inserts where they are, having the new people go in and fix the air leaks (they know what to do to fix that), then putting the wood stove somewhere else in the downstairs family room. If the next owner doesn't want a wood stove, they can remove it and still have the inserts and that will all cost a lot less for us. I'll post about it Monday after we get more info.
It will be interesting to hear what the fireplace people say. 😊
DeleteJudy, we had a Country Stove similar to their Scottsdale 160 wood stove model with blower inserted into our fireplace. It completed heated our first floor and keep the second floor comfortable - 2,200 sq ft house. It was great, especially when the power was out during the winter - this was pre-full house generator being installed.
DeleteOur current home has an 18 year old gas fireplace with a blower and an ignition that doesn’t need electricity to turn on. We used it this winter in Alaska to keep the pipes from freezing when the power went out for 3 days. It doesn’t get warm the same as wood, but it feels nice to stand in front of, and it did work. We also needed a little propane canister buddy heater under the on demand water heater in the garage. I had 2 wood stoves in our previous house and I really fought going to gas. I have embraced this, for all the reasons you listed. But I still miss the wood stove. If it’s do-able, and it’s not an issue for your insurance, I vote for wood!
ReplyDeleteCrazy how different things are. Ours supposedly cannot be used without electricity but Vince can light it with a long match once the gas has been on for a few seconds but we have to use a solar battery and plug the blower into that. Vince had to do some kind of "work around" to get it to where he could plug it in to the battery. The glass doors don't open and without the blower, if it's turned up warm enough to make the heat worth using, there's a chance the glass will break if the blower isn't running. It looks nice but it's pretty worthless when it comes to heating more than 2' from right in front of it.
DeleteKathy, I wasn't finished writing . . I have wanted a wood stove for so long. We had wood fireplaces in Texas and Kentucky (not in MO the first time). The wood stove is so convenient for heating water in a pot if the power is out . . which I could do on a gas stove but the room where the wood stove would be is not far from the downstairs bathroom (much closer than the downstairs garage when carrying a pot of hot water). I know what I want to do but I think Vince is apprehensive about it and I don't want him to wish we hadn't done it.
DeleteI have a small propane heater on the wall in my bedroom and used to have a large free standing propane heater in my living space (before I had central heat and air). While it may not be as attractive as the wood stove, there is a lot less work. Hook it up in the winter and disconnect and store it the rest of the year.
ReplyDeleteWe have a wood stove in the basement and a working fireplace upstairs. It's messy but it's a godsend when the power is out. We used the fireplace all the time when we first built this house (it has glass doors so you don't lose all the heat up the chimney) but seldom use it now. The wood stove gets used a lot.
ReplyDeleteFirst I’m so glad I found you! Went looking for patchwork times last night and it was gone! Second…..I love that red stove!
ReplyDeleteMany, many years ago, we lived in PA and put in an insert in the fireplace. That insert kept us SO nice and warm (almost too warm at times, LOL) and loved it. I always kept a teakettle on top to add some moisture to the air, but also used it to make the occasional cup of tea. I do LOVE the red stove - cheery, warm and welcoming.
ReplyDeleteI grew up on the east coast, with a Vermont Castings stove (plain black, but still pretty) for the only heat source in our house for many years. I was happy to see that you had thought about getting the wood and restarting a fire in the middle of the night with snow or rain. I have many memories of those such nights, and the skill to be able to light a fire with one or two matches, plus the knowledge on how to bank it, so it would last. That is one of the great things about Vermont casting stoves, they have a special design that keeps the fire low and steady. A couple of things I remember too are the dryness of the heat, and the dust and dirt of the thing. Have you looked at another brands of inserts? We have an Element gas fire place that heats our 750 sq foot great room very nicely. In CA we have no-burn days and weeks, but there are exceptions for people with wood burning as an only heat source. I really don't miss those wood burning stove days ;)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.element4fires.com
DeleteWe have a gas fireplace from about 2003 as well, don't know the brand though. One of the ones with the fire box surrounded by another box. The room air pulls through the space and warms up. It used to let in a cold draft, then DH found an opening outside in the bump-out. After he closed it off, no more draft. And when the blower kicks in, ambiance is lacking.
ReplyDeleteWe considered a wood stove when we built the house, but any time I'd been in a house with wood burning fireplace or stove, my eyes start burning and watering like crazy and it's hard to breathe. So wood was a no-go for us.
We had a smaller version of the black Lopi stove in the last house we lived in. It really heated up our downstairs fast, it was great. We had a lot of free wood around us at that time. Now we have a gas fireplace that doesn't get used very often. It doesn't warm up the house like a wood stove, don't like the blower noise, and I see dollar signs every time I use it. Lopi is a good choice.
ReplyDeleteWe heated with wood for many years. I like the heat from wood and since we had oil heat it cut our costs as we were able to go cut our own wood. Wood needs to cure so we would go out in the spring to get and stack wood so it would be dry by winter. I know oil heat is considered dirty but I have to say wood is much dirtier. It never failed that I would get a puff of smoke or ash when ever I put wood into the stove. So be prepared, can’t just toss in a log and go back to what you were doing either because wood is not clean and you don’t want to transfer that to your cross stitch. So during fire season my hands would get dry from washing them. Not sure why I never seemed to be able to keep gloves around the stove. They were always disappearing. We had a fairly effient stove that could hold a fire thru the night so that was nice. We has]d a fan that pushed the air out into the room. Now there were time the room the stove was in got too hot to sit in but we could heat most of the upstairs with the stove downstairs, the heat would go up the stairway and heat the rooms up there, we would keep doors open during the day so the kids bedrooms were warm. In our new place we have two fireplaces. We tried to get an insert but our local laws made it expensive for the permits and a previous remodel of the surround was going to have to be removed and redone to make it fit. So we never got around to it.
ReplyDeleteIn our old house, we had a wood stove that we used for thirty years (until we moved). We would get cords of wood delivered and get it stacked each year. My husband built a shed for the wood to be kept dry. We had a tri-level 1,600 foot house. The wood stove would keep the entire house warm. We would open a window on the upper level and it would pull the warm air up there. The really nice thing about heat from a wood stove is that is not like the off and on of a furnace. Just consistent heat. Even our sheet rock would warm up. We stopped putting in wood before bed but the entire house would still be warm by morning. I also loved knowing I could heat food up on top the stove if the electricity went out. One of the best investments we ever made and I do miss it now that we have a gas fireplace now. I would go with a wood stove absolutely.
ReplyDeleteIf you can, get a wood stove that circulates the exhaust and re-burns it, much cleaner for the environment. At any rate, wood heat is consistent and I do occasionally cook on the wood stove, even when the power is on ... I feel like I'm cheating the hydro bill!
ReplyDeletewe have had a blaze king wood stove for just over 20 years and i love it! hubby is not as enamored with the work as he cuts, splits, and moves it numerous times before we enjoy the heat.
ReplyDeletewe live in winter snow, lose electricity often, and feel it is worth the effort especially when we are at home most of the time.
we don't see the flames thru the windows because it has a catalytic converter and other than lighting, refilling (about every 12 hours), the glass looks like red hot lava or black. there is a blower if you want more heat coming into the house, but we're usually warmer than we need. we always say, "it's just a different house" when it's going. I think the warmth stays in the walls and furniture making it extremely cozy. it's just a lot more work than pushing the button on the thermostat - but our electric bill goes way down when we use it. i hope you enjoy yours!
Hi Judy, we had a hunter green Vermont Casting stove in our last house. It was in the basement rec room and warmed that room so nicely. We had pine wood floors upstairs and the floors were so warm. We loved it!!! I always had a pot of water with potpourri in it! Smelled so good!!
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