Ok, we have a real masonry fireplace in our house. Unfortinatly, the proprotions are incorrect so it’s very inefficent at heating. I’ll give you an example: A good strong fire over 5 hours will burn about 7 arm loads of wood and raise the temerature in the living room about 2 degrees. Like I said, not very efficient. We have alot of wood on our property and would like to use it as a secondary source of heat. We have narrowed our choices down to a fireplace insert, a wood stove, or to rebuild the fireplace to the rumford specification. Calculating our heating needs it looks like we need around 35,000btu output. This will allow me to turn the furnace fan on and to circulate the heat through the home. We’ve limited our choices for a wood insert or a wood stove to a product by either Jotul or Vermont Castings. The reasons being that we like the classical cast iron look. We have absolutly no interest in a steel stove-so please don’t suggest one. I’ve used wood stoves before and know how effective they are at heating a home. However, I have no experience with wood inserts or rumford style fireplaces. I was hoping that there would be some members that could help guide our decision by sharing their experiences. I’m particularly interested in knowing how effective a rumford would be at heating our home. I realize that this fireplace will heat the objects in front of it very effectivly, but how well will it heat the room? The house?
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Replies
a Rumsford is a classical beauty and enjoyable to sit in front of. It is more productive than what you have but it wioll still make use of lots of wood. Unfortunately, it heats by radiant rather than convection so your plan to use a circulating fan to move hot air from it around the house may not work well. The fan could also interfere with the way it draws.
Additionally, You could not simply rebuild your firebox. The neck on a Rumsford stands much taller, so you would be rebuilding a great deal of your whole nasonry structure into the chimney, making a mess of your house, and yopur pocketbook. In some instances, it can be less expensive to add a Rumsford where nothing exists now than to rebuiold an existing one into a Rumsford.
By far, your least expensive option is to add an insert to what you have. Installation of a wood stove will occupy a large amt of space in the room, something that many people don't fully realize until it is tto late. The insert with a fan will produce nearly as much heat as a stove, IMO. cleaning the chimney can be tricky with some of them though.
Excellence is its own reward!
Hi Tim,
I am not a heating expert but I've had both cast stoves and a Rumford fireplace. IMO, the woodstove will provide less loading and more overall heat, but the Rumford is tops on aesthetics...tradeoff either way.
If you go with the Rumford, you should figure out a way to bring in outside air to the firebox - I used 4" conduit. Think you'll find this helps efficiency considerably. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Todd
I'm currently favoring tearing the fp appart to make the opening taller. In the process we'll remove the smoke box and damper and then install a wood stove with a straight flue. Should make the cleaning at least feasible. The insert would be the easiest to install but the cleanings would be a real...well...you know.
I have a Lopi, it is a stove not insert