You're right about the fireplace but yours is also built poorly. In a tight modern house you need a source of makeup air, this should not be leaving a window open, thats silly. There should be an air inlet just below the fireplace opening which allows outside air in a controlled manner.
There are loads of woodburning fireplace inserts which raise the terrible inefficiencies of the fireplace. The best, of course, is a real woodstove which sits into the room rather than trying to reflect heat into the room. -Curt Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 13:56:05 -0500 From: Randy Bennell <rbenn...@bennell.ca> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] best chain saw Message-ID: <519288c5.30...@bennell.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed 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 _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
