Is using a fireplace beneficial in the winter?

[Kestas]

I've heard that using a wood-burning fireplace can actually suck more of the heated air out of the house than the heat radiated from the fireplace. Is this true? Anybody have data?

A buddy of mine swears that his furnace is on less often when he uses the fireplace. This is contrary to what I've learned. I'd hate to have all my expensive warm air in the house disappear up the chimney.

I know Mythbusters looked at this and determined the immediate room with the fireplace is warmer, but the surrounding rooms get colder because of the air draw.

 

[SuperDave456]

The question becomes "Where does the drafting come from."
A fireplace must draft to the outside of the home.

So a fireplace sucks cold air into the house, warms that air, then pushes the warm air up the chimney.

Unless you have a furnace or fireplace that sucks in air from outside you are venting the heat that you are trying to keep into your home.

A franklin style stove solves a lot of this by sucking air into the home from under the floorboards or from a hole in the wall, but very few homes have this anymore.

The vast majority of fireplaces today are purely for decoration. They serve no other purpose.

 

[mpvue]

this is a weird question; we used a wood burning stove exclusively for years, burning free wood, don't see how that was wasteful.
now, in the coldest months, yes, of course the furthest rooms from the stove were cold, but that seems like an obvious conclusion.
my parents now use a wood burning stove that is located in the basement/garage; they have a thermostat controlled fan that blows the warm air into the home.
they have an oil burner as well, but it hardly ever comes on, just when they aren't at home to keep the fire going.

 

[Radman]

I have a natural wood fireplace that I never use. Whenever we did light it up it pulled air from around the doors & windows and the furnace would immediately kick on. My wife affectionately dubbed it the "Fire vacuum place" Perhaps the insert style is energy efficient, but mine isn't.

 

[bigmike]

We use our fireplace quite a bit during winter months. But, this avoids us from having to turn our heat pump on and run the heat.

 

[IndyIan]

My FIL has a fireplace that is sort of semi airtight, its got a chimmney damper, air controls on the doors, and the brick mantel has air vents to pull air into it near the fire box so the air is heated. So it works as a net gain heat source as its burning and then it radiates heat for quite a while after the fire is out.
My buddy also has a cottage with a similar set up and its the only source of heat and it works quite well even at -20C outside.
I think EPA woodstoves are far more efficient but some fireplaces work too.

 

[bepperb]

Check out woodheat.org


A lot depends on how much air is going up the chimmney (glass doors open or closed) and where that air is coming from (your house or outside vent).

Agreed, no glass doors you're probably breaking even. A EPA wood stove can be pretty efficient. And there's a lot in between.

 

[Quest]

Most natural gas, fake electrical/infrared fireplace, etc. are meant for mood use only (purely cosmetic reasons) and they, for the most part, served little purpose in heating the house.

I already turned off the pilot light of the 2 natural gas fired fireplace in our house shortly after we took possession of it, never look back since( even saved on that approx. 7 bucks of natural gas consumed while idling (pilot light)).

The real deal nowadays come from some elaboratively constructed fireplace that runs on wood pellets or so, with assisted electrical fan/blower to aid in circulation of the heated air to warm the house.

Also: most of these stoves are now EPA approved for high efficiency and low emissions. It's not cheep to retrofit one of these but serves the purpose and keeps the heating bill reasonable.

Q.

 

[Nick R]

We have a natural gas fired fireplace in our living room. It's a sealed thing, vents outside only. But it does put out a load of heat. I think the landlord says 30,000 BTUs? Something like that I think. It puts out some serious heat.

 

[Whimsey]

Since 1981 I've had a heatalator(sp?)insert in my fireplace. It has glass doors, variable air intake vents below with a blower motor. The heat tubes are a high grade stainless steel. While no where near as efficent as a wood stove it has provided heat to my poorly insulated ranch home in northern NJ. When the fire is going the furnace is off. Plus it's real nice to be warm & watch a fire. It's only used when I'm not working that day

. Otherwise I get home too late to start a fire or I'm working at night.

The temp by the furnance is kept at 60 24/7 in the winter. With the fireplace we get the treat of upper 60's low 70's

. I'm cheap, what can I say

.

Whimsey

 

[Michael_P]

Fireplace fans greatly increase efficiency. Especially if the fireplace is designed to have a fan installed.

 

[bigmike]

A natural gas fireplace/stove is all my grandparents have in North Carolina. It chunks out heat so hot that I can't stand to be in the same room with it on. I've been known to go outside and sleep instead.

 

[bullwinkle]

Dunno, my recently installed EPA woodburner is cutting 25-30% off my natural gas usage, and most woodstoves can be fitted with a duct for outside air to use for combustion (which would be a necessity in a new, tightly sealed/insulated house).

 

[Steve S]

If you put a fireplace insert with a fan to circulate the heat the fire place can heat can do a pretty good job of adding heat to the house. I would recommend an insert if you can get firewood at a fair price and are going to stay in the house for at least 10 years. I have put them in the last 2 houses I have owned.

 

[The_Jeff]

I've a Vermont Castings "Vigilant" wood stove (their whole lineup is named after virtues

) and with ambient outside air at 15'F it keeps the house warm enough. All the air goes in a 2x2 inch thermostatically controlled trap door... wish it were bigger so max heat output could be more.

My house leaks air a little. Without the stove running wind blows in one side and out the other. Now it blows in all sides and goes up in smoke. I may have done something right reinsulating as the stove no longer draws like it used to, and the chimney and pipe are clean.

The cold air intakes are a good idea. hearth.com discusses all you want to know. The catalytic with blower models look like the bee's knees: the heat from the convertor is not wasted!

 

[OrdnanceMarine]

Really seems to depend on the fireplace. If radiant heat is the only way you get some of what you burn back into your house then it's going to be a wash at best and a loss on average. Just going to an insert with a good way to control the air coming in to the fire and either a lot of surface area or a means of exchanging air across the firebox raises your efficiency substantially. It also matters what kind of fuel you're using (moisture mostly) because if the wood is wet then a significant portion of whatever you're burning is going back in to evaporating water from the wood so you're sucking in cold air for combustion and not getting any heat because you're spending it all on making steam that's going up your flue.

Kind of off topic, but our house didn't have a fireplace when we bought it but I took the opportunity to add a free-standing pellet stove about 4 years ago. Lennox claims up to 85% efficiency if you're running the heat exchanger blower on high and the pellet feed auger on low. I'd believe it gets close to that though it does draw cold air from the attic in through the vent that feeds air to the clothes dryer on the other side of the house so you get a cold spot in our hallway. I've toyed with the idea of putting an intake pipe inside of the pellet vent chase so at least I'd be sucking in the cold air where I'm using it and perhaps pre-heating it slightly. Probably won't now that I installed a solar panel system in '09 that makes enough power to heat my house entirely with electricity.

 

[Corvette Owner]

My home wood fireplace has a separate, outside air vent, with a glass door there is no heat lost. Doesn't matter, wood was too messy, so I installed a non-vented gas log kit (with remote control), no heat loss!

My gas fireplace down at the beach is vented, but has a heatalator and a glass door, it has positive heat gain also.

 

[greenjp]

My home has a non-venting natural gas fireplace in the walkout-basement level family room. It's a 3 story townhouse and the basement level is always cooler than the rest of the house. Since it doesn't vent, there's no suction effect on the rest of the house. I've never experienced any fumes-related problems, I think

Anyway it is very powerful. It heats that room up considerably, and when we were without power during the mega storm last year and the forced air furnace wasn't working, the fireplace pretty much kept the house comfortable for 4 or 5 days.

jeff

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: mpvue
this is a weird question; we used a wood burning stove exclusively for years, burning free wood, don't see how that was wasteful.

Huge difference between a wood stove were you get gobs of convection from the stove. In a fireplace you get very little convection.

 

[Win]

Sure seems to make a difference at our primary residence.

The fireplace/hearth is rock and pretty large, about 10 x 4 feet. When all that rock gets hot, it radiates a lot of heat back in the house.

It's 16F outside and with the fire going all day, it's hot here in the house. Our secondary residence is a new house and it has no fireplace. I wish it did.