People who like thier fireplaces

[WickedLou9]

As I have mentioned before, I live in a pretty old house. It's a bit drafty and heating it is mucho expensive.
I also like to have fires in the fireplace. There are few things better than sitting back in front of a fire and just relaxing, watching TV, whatever.
The problem is that with a normal fireplace it doesn't do much to heat your house. Some people claim that it actually cools the house because it draws so much air up the chimney.

Now there are solutions out there like wood burning stoves which you can use to heat your house, but those don't give you the ambiance and they are big and bulky. They also sell "fireplace inserts" which are essentially wood burning stoves which fit into your fireplace. These are nice because they seal off the fireplace, they have glass doors which allow you to see the fire, and they have fans which circulate air around the unit and out into your living room to help with heating. The problem with these is that they are expensive. You can easily spend 2,000 on one of these things.


I found something called a fireplace radiator. Aparenetly they have been out for a long time, but I just discovered them. They are much cheaper then a fireplace insert. I bought one on E-bay for 250 dollars. It's basically a cast iron radiator that fits into the back of your fireplace. It's conected to two plenumns, one of which is attached to a fan of some sort and the other vents out into the room. It does provide a good bit of heat actually. If you are going to have a fire anyway, why not scavenge some of that wasted heat? Maybe it will help a little with heating costs.


This is the one I have, although I did find several variations in my searching.

I just figured I would share.

These are not my pics.




This is another variation I found

[7960]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

I just figured I would share.

These are not my pics.

We had this in the house I grew up in. Holy fucking hot batman! We used to fight over who was going to get to lie in front of it on the floor.

[Linzyhop]

my mom has an external fireplace in her house. she used it for the main heating last winter before she had her new gas unit installed.

we had a fisher external stove growing up. it was awesome to warm up by that after a bath or shower and watch tv. used to do it all the time. unfortunately i fell into once when i was little. got a nice scar across the back of my thigh still.

its one of the reasons i love my electric radiator. i put that on before jumping in a shower and come back to my bedroom all nice and toasty.

of course you always have those idiots who put things within the 3 feet distance and start fires.... i am VERY careful about that shit.

okay. end of story. carry on.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 7960

We had this in the house I grew up in. Holy fucking hot batman! We used to fight over who was going to get to lie in front of it on the floor.

Yeah it works fairly well. I a fire burning all day saturday and I don't think the heat clicked on once all day.

[RMNIXON]

My parents who live in the mountains have a huge wood burning stove. It will heat the whole two story house and is essential in the Winter. They also have gas heating but that is costly, and hauling wood and lighting a fire gives my dad something else to do besides watch the Dow Jones.