Wood burner insert?

[scrambledmess]

We have one of these in our house and sadly have never used it. We are wanting to use it this year. Is it really economical, since the blowers run on electricity? We really have no idea where to start? How important is getting the chimney cleaned? How does the flue (sp?) work? How much wood do we need? Should we turn the heat in the house completely off or have it set on something like 60? Do we need fans to circulate the heat through the house?

Our house is 2100 sq ft. The fireplace is in the center of the house pointing into a great room. The bedrooms are on the side of the house with a hallway and wall seperating it from the main part of the house. Our windows are not insulated. Heck the temp has only got below freezing here a couple of times since we moved here 3 years ago. I doubt many people here (especially in older homes) have insulated windows.

I know that is alot of questions, I appreciate any responses

 

[user251]

its all according to the unit. I have a Buck and it is rated at 75% efficient as it has a catalytic converter which simply put burns the smoke from the fire for additional heat. A blower draws very little electricity so in my opinion it is far cheaper than gas heat and a heap cheaper than electricity because if the temp drops to low some rely on strip heat which draws huge amounts of power. as far as thw amount of wood it also depends on alot of factors ie efficiency of home insulation, size of your home. I sometimes use small fans to move air around just for comfort sake. i would use the fireplace and just when you think you've got enough wood to last cut some more just in case

 

[Farmfresh]

I have an insert and I love it!

We usually keep the furnace on and turned way down (like 60). We have a ceiling fan in the room with the insert and keep it on to help circulate the heat. A ceiling fan uses very little electricity. We have a blower as well and we run it also. It is a relatively small fan too and really uses little electricity. Plus, since we tend to gather by the fireplace... think of all the electricity that we save by having lights off in other rooms, and the TV OFF!

We keep the bedrooms cooler and just add more blankets. If you are a chilly willy - turn on an electric blanket long enough to pre-heat the bed then turn it off to save the power. Your body will keep the bed warm as you sleep. Also in the olden days folks wore night caps. A nice little stocking cap keeps you head cozy and your "do" done.

Some days you just need to have a short fire, instead of an all day fire, to get the chill off. On days like this you can keep the furnace off entirely.

With just wood heat alone on really cold days you might have problems with pipes in places far away from the fireplace freezing.

Another nice thing is sometimes you get wood for free. Like when my neighbor's tree collapsed and fell. He had a saw and cut it up - I just had to haul and split it. The power company NEVER has deals like that!

Farmfresh

 

[Farmfresh]

Oh I forgot to say ... our insert heats our whole 1500 sq ft house to 70 - when the temps are around 20 degrees!

 

[patandchickens]

what do y'all do when the power is out? I keep thinking about a woodburning insert for our currently basically-useless fireplace, but since the chief purpose for me would be to provide a source of heat when the electric is out and inserts seem mostly to have electric fans to disperse the heat.... ?

Pat

 

[MorelCabin]

what do y'all do when the power is out? I keep thinking about a woodburning insert for our currently basically-useless fireplace, but since the chief purpose for me would be to provide a source of heat when the electric is out and inserts seem mostly to have electric fans to disperse the heat.... ?

Pat

You can buy ecofans at any hardware store that are heat activated and sit right on top of the insert. In our old house we had an insert that we used during a week long power outage after an ice storm. It was -35F and we were cozy...even without an ecofan

 

[MorelCabin]

With an insert it is very important to clean the chimney before using it for the season, and you should pull the insert out from the fireplace and have alook at the top hole to make sure that nothing is clogging it. It can be a real firehazard if you don't do this. Some proffessional cleaners won't even do it but it is you at risk...

I think you are talking about "damper" when you say flu. Basicly it works like this...
When you first start the fire open the damper all the way and burn a good sized chunk of newspaper to open the airway to the chimney. If you don't do this alot of times you will end up with a house full of smoke and no fire:>) Then start your fire in the stove. The damper basicly lets more air in to get the fire going good. Once you have your fire burning really good you close off the damper a little at a time as the house temp rises. When we go to bed we fill the stove and close the damper for the night because it makes the wood last longer through the night, you burn alot of wood when the damper is wide open. Our dampers were on the front of the stove...some are on the stove pipe itself, and I am not sure if you close those all the way...some one with this type of set up will have to reply:>)

If you have never used the unit before I would first have it inspected and make sure that your chimney is not corroded or in the case of a brick chimney, not broken up in places. Here in Canada it is illegal to run on just a block chimney, we have to have stainless steel inserts put in, which actually causes more small chimney fires because they are alot smaller in diamater and need more frequent cleaning than a larger block chimney...BUT the fire stays contained so most of the time will go out on its own eventually

 

[keljonma]

We had a fireplace insert back in the 70's and 80's. It was at the end of the house. It was in an L-shaped addition off the kitchen that was made into a family/dining room by the previous owners. I don't remember the brand of insert we had, but it would burn a load of seasoned hard wood about 8 to 10 hours if properly banked.

We only used the blower on the insert until that area and the kitchen were warm. The winter of 77/78 we had temps of -55F with the wind chill. We were without power for about 10 or 15 days. By keeping the fire going constantly, we were fine. We sat around reading Little House books by oil lamps to our daughter. We drank lots of hot tea or cocoa, and ate and slept in the family room and popped popcorn once or twice. We have fond memories of it now.

My dh was a chimney sweep in his younger years, so we agree with others that recommend you have the fire dept or a chimney sweep check the chimney before using it every year.

 

[coopy]

We have an Old Hickory fireplace insert. Have use it for 34 years now. Love it. The reason we put it in was one months bill was over $300.00 for the electric heat we had. We disconnected the electric heat that is in in ceiling and have used the insert ever since. As for backup heat we have a heat pump that we keep at 55 F. This is so the pipes won't freeze while we aren't home. Should the fire go out.
If we fill the stove up at 9:00 p.m. we don't have to fill it again until around 4:00 am the next morning. You have to remember it depends on the type of the wood you are burning as to how long it will last. Pine burns up fast. Hickory burns slower and hotter. The type of wood makes a ton of difference.
Make sure to have a professional check out your insert and chimney liner for cracks and such. If your liner or stove have cracks in them the smoke can come back in the house and that could be deadly which is as bad if not worse than the fires.
We use usually 3 or 4 rick of wood a year. I don't know how to tell you how much that is. I just know that is what we use.
If our went bad tomarrow we would buy another one.

 

[scrambledmess]

Thanks for all the replies so far. I will be calling someone in for an inspection next week. We don't currently have the access to cut our own wood. Something for next summer, I guess. We will have to purchase some for this winter.

A poster above mentioned burning pine? I had heard you couldn't burn pine in a fireplace because it got it dirtier quicker?

I found a fellow at work who used to cut wood to sell. He is going to help me find someone honest to get wood from. I just have a fear of getting the short end of the stick, so to speak. It is supposed to save us money and not cost us, if KWIM?