A friend asked me about them. He has a huge Masonry Fireplace without doors. Looks great but is lacking in efficiency. 2 'whole house' squirrel cage blowers help but it really eats the wood. Anyone have any advice or brand suggestions?
Get a wood stove to set in front of it and run the stove pipe into the chimney anfter haveing 5 foot or more or horizontal for the heat to radiate into the room instead of up the chimney.
Thanks, I thought of that but he doesn't have the room in the room to place a free standing unit. I was thinking an insert that was sealed and had the right doors would make for a more efficient burn.
I've had a Better 'n Ben cast iron fireplace insert on one of my smaller fireplaces for more years that I care to remember. It protrudes about 7"-8" onto the hearth. Its much more efficient than just a fireplace and puts out a lot of heat. Another advantage is using the exposed surface to keep water kettles for humidifying the house. I used a large wood stove in my other house or years and I heated the whole house. I had it in the basement and loaded it twice a day for heating the whole (small) house.
ok makes sense, Meanwhile I thought of another way, use it like the old gravity furnaces with holes in the floor for heat to rise thru they had vented covers over them thanks for info
The house had always been heated with wood but in a slightly different way. My granddad build that house and being quite an ingeneous fellow, he put an old cast iron boiler in the basement and ran pipes through the firebox. The pipes were connected to the old cast iron radiators. When I moved their, I put a regular woodstove in because it was much more efficient. The old boiler had deteriorated through the years so it was time for a new system.
