My experience with a nice wood fireplace is that you lose more heat than you gain. We had one to start in our house and it was sort of nice to have a crackling fire with a bit of the smell of woodsmoke but we quickly realized we could not use it in really cold weather (when we most likely would have) because it sucked all of the heat out of the rest of the house. It was warm by the fire but not anywhere else. It made our furnace and hot water tank chimney back draft and that smelled awful in addition to being unhealthy and unsafe. We could only use the fireplace with the windows on either side of it open and that caused a cold draft that was not pleasant to sit in. So, after a while, we put in a gas insert. It looks nice and it is fast and easy but it is not the same so basically we don't use it. If it wouldn't be such a big mess, I would remove the whole thing. It's primary purpose now is to hold the mantle clock and the stockings at Christmas.
Randy On 14/05/2013 12:13 PM, Dan Penoff wrote:
Dan story: When I was 10 yeas old, we moved into a house that sat on an acre of lawn with an adjoining wooded plot that was around 7-8 acres. The house had a great room with a vaulted ceiling, and a fireplace made of stone that nearly filled one of the walls. Dad proclaimed when we moved in, "I am going to have a fire every night in the winter." When fall came around he informed my older brother and I that we would now be spending our fall weekends felling trees and cutting timber for the fireplace. He went out into the woods with a can of spray paint and marked the trees he wanted us to cut down. So he comes home from work a few days later, having made a stop at Vonneguts, our local hardware store. Anticipation was high between my brother and I, thinking about all the fun we were going to have with a chain saw and the resulting damage we would do. Dad pulls into the garage, pops the trunk of his car, and pulls out.... An axe. An adze. Some wedges. (We are just about ready to burst at this point) .....and a Tuttle Tooth Two Man Saw!!! Whaaa? Oh, and two new pair of leather work gloves. So my brother and I spent our October and November weekends felling trees with the axe and wedges, and cutting up the lumber with the Tuttle Tooth saw. I will say that if you have a couple of people who work together well, you can do some serious damage with a two man saw. I sold the saw just a year or two ago. It was as sharp as the day we got it. Dan who still doesn't have a chain saw, which is probably just as well
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