For some reason, I thought about fireplaces tonight. Maybe because it's a snowy, cold night where I live. (Cold by my area standards.) It would be nice to sit by the fire, sipping hot tea, while I annoy everyone on AW.org post on AW.org. Alas, though, there is no fireplace here.

I grew up in a couple of houses that had fireplaces. One apparently inspired my parents big gift for themselves one Christmas: a screen and tools. (First year in that house.) I don't remember it, but we lived in a house later on that had a fireplace, and one happy  memory was using that in winter. It was hugely saddening when we stopped using it--some concerns that chimney cleaning was overdue. My mother and I talked about getting it done the last couple of years we lived there; however, the budget was tight, and we never got around to it... Although I did sort of revive the main fireplace by tossing in yard sale find set of electric logs. So we had "a fire" the last winter (including the last Christmas). 

I miss fireplaces, and think "someday" I'd like to have one again...although I suppose they aren't the best things for the environment, or the wallet, if used. (Although I suppose gas fireplaces would be better on both counts. But there is something about real wood fires I still like.)

So how about others here? Does anyone else have and use a fireplace?

We have one, that we put a fireplace insert into. Equipped with a blower, it keeps the living room toasty warm this time of year.

The house I grew up in had one.  All 3 of my houses have had them and I have used them.  My current house featured a "heat-a-lator" blower in it and particularly enjoyed how well it kept "the common area" warm.  I haven't used mine for 20 years due to being laid off in 1997 and subsequent financial issues.  And unless a huge financial windfall is bestowed on me, I probably won't as I would need the chimney to be inspected and cleaned before I even purchase wood. Neighbors around me still use them.  I kind of enjoy the smell outside when it gets really cold and the fireplaces are used. 

And big quartz glass doors. It can warm the house by itself in the transition period and cuts the gas bill by more than half in the sub-zero periods. 

I don't see how burning wood contributes to pollution, the sequestered CO₂ just gets returned.

The sad thing - it used to take us at least two hours to cut down the dead treas and load a cord.

Thanks to beetle kill, the last run wasn't 45 minutes from start to finish. I put my hand on one 5" tree and said, 'let's cut this one...'when it snapped.

The local forest service was pretty nasty about letting us cut wood even 10 years ago. Today, they're so glad to get the dry, brittle, burns at a glance stuff out of there they even smiled at us when they checked our permits.

I love a wood fire. The animals adore it.

I wanted a wood burning fireplace.  It was on my list when I bought the house, because a few years back there was a big ice storm where power was out for up to two weeks; I wanted a back up. 

In an 80 year old house I got a former Coal burning fireplace that had been converted to gas.  It's cleaner, works to make the room toasty, and there for an emergency.  Just doesn't quite have the ambiance of warm flickering flames.

There is definitely something wrong. You should be getting strong heat output as soon as the draft is established. You might want to check that out.

You won't get the level of efficiency our sealed combustion chamber does - outside air in, not room air, but there should be a good return of heat. Perhaps a former owner closed a draft or something fell across a duct? You'd be surprised how many stupid things happen. My parents' first house in the US was ice cold in two rooms whilst the rest was very well balanced. After many attempts to 'fix' it by various furnace people, it was an Italian cousin visiting in February who solved it: The previous owners had stuffed a pillow into the cold-air return line to those two rooms. Pillow out, whole house balanced and comfy.

Take a good look, do a smoke test, I bet something's blocked.

The area I live in is relatively new. Wood burning fireplaces are illegal. I have a gas fireplace which I occasionally use when I have company. Most of the heat produced goes up the vent (chimney) so it's really just wasting gas. Fortunately gas is not expensive here. I often smell mesquite burning in the evenings. Maybe it's a BBQ, although I wouldn't be surprised if some yahoo is trying to burn wood in a gas unit. I suspect the vent on top of the chimney would be tell-tale black. I'd report it to the fire department if I spotted one...just call me a mean old man, even at this time of year. Scrooge was right, Christmas is a humbug.

My vote for the best "A Christmas Carol" ever...

Tim, is your fan blower motor working correctly? On mine, once the fireplace really heats up the metal, I turn on the blower and it pumps out the heat. 

I don't see how burning wood contributes to pollution, the sequestered CO₂ just gets returned.

I've heard the argument in Mother Earth News more than once that wood is ahead of other fuels. In order for the system to work, we need to plant trees, which clean the air. Meanwhile, fossil fuels carbon content is locked deep within the earth...until it's pumped or mined and then burned. And when burned, there is usually nothing to compensate, like a brand new tree.

One can also argue that a fuel spill involving wood is a lot less devastating than petroleum.

Another factor to keep in mind: newer wood stoves and inserts are much cleaner than had once been the case. Indeed, there is evidence of that in my state. In the Tacoma area, there has been real concern about air quality (and I think it's a national concern, probably EPA). During certain periods when air pollution can be a real problem, there would be burn bans. The first to be banned would always be plain fireplaces and older stoves. I think it reached a point where wood stoves in one area now legally must be a low emissions design. I have mixed feelings, because I can see having an antique stove, and wanting to use it, but the area has had the pollution issues.

My parents had the original tall & shallow (but not a "Rumford" type) 1927 fireplace here converted to gas over 30 years ago.  

My dad could build a roaring wood fire, but I never got the hang of it, and can do without having to tend a fire once it's going anyway.  Now that it's gas, all I need is a long lighter or match, and there's no need for a screen -- a big plus for aesthetics IMO.  We only light it when entertaining.

Earlier this year, the Bay Area Air Quality Management group announced it was pursuing a complete ban on wood burning fireplaces.  It would have required a retrofit whenever a home with a wood burning fireplace was sold.   There was a serious uproar from the community and realtors, more about the costs involved than the desire to burn wood, and the plans were dropped.  I'm sure that if a retrofitting incentive plan could be funded, opposition to something of that nature would be minimal.

In the meantime, we have "Spare the Air" days declared when stagnant conditions cause particulate pollution to build, and on such days burning wood is not allowed.  People generally tend to observe them because they can't hide what they're doing.

The guy around the corner from me burns wood every chance he gets, and regularly on weekends.  I don't know if his chimney has draft issues or if he just likes to let his fires smolder, but the smoke sort of wafts instead of billowing upward, then drifts over the surrounding homes during the better part of the day, making it hard to be outside.   I can even smell it in my basement because it enters through the foundation vents.  He does observe the Spare the Air alerts, though.   Maybe he knows there are lots of neighbors who would be reaching for their phones if given the chance to lodge a legitimate complaint.

One thing I wouldn't mind if I had a different kitchen configuration and more room is a vintage stove with a trash burner.   I've had a couple of mid-'30s Wedgewoods in the past that had trash burners, and it was a cinch to start a fire in them and keep them going.

in a state roughly the size of Germany.

With a population less than half-a-million.

And a 24x7 stiff breeze.

And the best air quality of any city in the US because of that stiff breeze.

I'm not the least worried that my fireplace is hurting anyone's health here.

Now, I can remember visits to Berlin before the wall fell which left me gasping for breath.

It's all about the concentration of fires in a given space - we couldn't do this in Munich. Actually, the last fireplace I had in Munich ran through a scrubber and a catalytic converter. 

Well, Panthera, even with all those systems, there might be issues of something leaking out when the door is opened to toss in wood... Of course, how much of a problem wood burning with any given system raises depends heavily on how its used, and the people in the environment.

The other minus I see with all those systems is that they sound like they need power to work...and so if the electricity goes bye-bye, I assume the wood burner won't work. It seems to me I've heard this as a minus for some systems like wood pellet stoves--it requires power to run.

Outside air supply for combustion is not news to me. No idea when it came to be, but I remember having conversations with the guy who used to maintain the place where I live. He was fired up (ha!) to install a wood stove here--which I'd have liked--but the problem is I live in a mobile home  [Gag. Shudder.]  But a problem we hit: it would have to be a cheap installation, and one of the big stumbling blocks to that was that wood stove had to be a special one with combustion air intake from the outside, which poses problems when used stove shopping. But stoves like that apparently just have an unforced air connection (a pipe leading outside, no blower) or so I gathered. Meanwhile, you could get any stove used--even one sitting in a ditch, rusting away--and toss it into a real house, and (as far as combustion air supply was concerned) no one would care, or so I gathered. The fire department, however, might not approve of a rusted-out stove on other grounds...

It seems like a lot of people in my area are using gas fireplaces or gas logs now. I tried to help give away some firewood a decade ago, and I found zero takers. People I knew with fireplaces said they'd converted.  Not everyone, of course--stores still have (the last I knew) those paper wrapped fireplace logs, and I see bundles of overpriced firewood outside Fred Meyer every winter. So someone must still use real wood fireplaces.

I have to admit to some  dislike of gas logs and also some changes of thought--or at least a growing tolerance. I think I positively hated the idea, once. When my childhood home was sold, the buyer talked openly about whether gas logs would work in the fireplace. My mother and I both cringed at the idea--even though we'd never had the resources to service the chimney, we were die-hard "real" fireplace fans. (The electric logs I mentioned using earlier were OK--they  made the fireplace usable again, and were obviously 100% reversible. Indeed, one could in theory alternate between real wood fires (on special occasions like Christmas) and use the electric logs the rest of the time.

But I'm getting more tolerant of the idea, and can even imagine myself using a gas fireplace if I had one. I like the traditional wood...but as I get older, I guess I see the practical advantages of gas more and more. Wood is either a lot of work to chop, or a lot of expense (to buy wood), for what is (with most fireplaces) nothing more than decoration. Add to that the pain of cleaning out ashes...

And past this (at least part of which was hinted at above), one thing that is nice about gas is that it lights fast, and seems more practical for regular use. It's nice to think about building a big fire on a cold Saturday night. But those evenings when one might only have an hour or less to sit, relaxing, gas seems a lot more practical.

Even when we open a door to reload, there's so much suction not even ash comes out.

The outside air doesn't have to be forced, so that's no problem and the fireplace is conventional in loading and burning so that's no problem and I have 12 v. backup blowers in case the power goes down so that's no problem. I guess I'm paranoid, but it did seem one major reason to have a fireplace designed as the main heat source for a medium sized house.

It's a Canadian design and, as the comments here (and from friends back home in Germany) show, it's not a concept with which most people in Europe are familiar. I love it - such pretty fires, such pleasant and cheap warmth and a backup for times when the power does fail.

Sounds like a good design you have, Panthera!

As commented before, I like the idea of heating with wood, but having the ability to watch the fire would be important. When I lived with a wood stove one winter, as I think I mentioned above, one thing I did NOT like about it was that the doors were solid metal. (That stove was probably chosen based entirely on practical issues. The people who built that house heated with wood only for many years, apparently. They may well have only cared about "free heat" and not at all about "romance of flickering flames.")

I remember reading some reprints of floor plans and building ideas devised by Gustav Stickley (Arts & Crafts/Mission era), and one thing I recall was a fireplace idea of making a fireplace that a metal firebox IIRC that could circulate hot air. Presumably, this would get more heating out of a fireplace, although the efficiency would be less than other systems (e.g., more or less sealed stove). One could apparently order a premade fireplace firefox (again IIRC). Fireplaces were a major part of Stickley design, and one assumes the more efficient fireplace was an earlier attempt at getting better efficiency and allowing people to enjoy the fire.

A couple of other memories... As mentioned, when I was growing up, we had a fireplace that we used. That era was also an era of energy consciousness (due to oil crisis of the late 70s). I remember glass doors being a big thing, and a move my father had on his "someday" list. I think some colleague of his swore by them, and I think efficiency was one point made. I was sort of glad "someday" never happened--I liked the regular screen. Actually, I'd have liked a setup where there was no screen (although admittedly this results in safety issues. In that house, the hearth wasn't big enough--50s "ledge" design--to have the fireplace screen open for much longer than it took to add wood.

The other memory I have from that era were special grates that would recover more heat by using air tubes that surrounded the fire. IIRC, some were passive designs (no blower), but others had a blower. (The ones with a blower, one assumes, would work better.)

You're a naughty boy. You'll have the Imperial Queens reaching for their Geritol if you're not careful.

'Fraid the November elections have me thinking along slightly different lines - the winning voters are in a long, dark, narrow tunnel. At the end they see a light! Our Salvation, our Führer! Nope, just an onrushing freight train. I did mention it was a very narrow tunnel with no place to go, didn't I?

I was thankful for the fireplace this morning. Flame sensor on the furnace was dirty. Again. never fails at three in the afternoon, nope - always in the middle of the night and always when we're cruising down toward minus 0°F. Got it cleaned and working - but ordered a new one just in case. That's the third cleaning in just a short time. I think it's coming to the end of the road. Or, it's always been marginal.

Of course the furnace never breaks at 3 PM. Evil gremlins sit in the basement, checking the watch to see if it's the middle of the night, and then checking the outside temperature to see if it's cold enough to be a huge inconvenience if the furnace breaks!

I think it's more than a little scary the thought of the furnace breaking suddenly. At night, when one is home, is inconvenient. But what if the part acts up on a chilly weekend when one is out of town?

Franklin stoves are an approach that interested me years back. Better efficiency than a fireplace (although supposedly not as good as sealed wood stove of that era), and the option of having it open to enjoy the fire. Although the value would only exist if one regularly used it as closed stove. Otherwise, one might as well just have an all-metal fireplace... (Or, of course, a stove with a window.)

Well, here are the only pics o' my fireplace that seemed to make it to my new computer & were probably taken w/ my new camera (the old one fell & broke two times: 1) daughter dropped it, spent $100+ to have it fixed 2) "Fat, Drunk & Stupid" took a selfie of himself being two, out of the three--retired it after that...) --and I had pulled them off of Facebook:

I have probably not burned a single log since then, back a great number of years--just too much work to clean the fireplace out (have a half-a-box o' starter logs & some kindling) and I don't care for the heat from the furnace to go up the chimney (it has a good damper, which is shut) nor for it to be by only heat source (it's in the den & I'm ready to nap & relax in the bedroom, though I'd just got up--well, almost two hours ago I took my daughter to school & my wife just left) either...

-- Dave

Two FP in this '41 home. The one in the living room is original, complete with massive painted mantel and smart looking narrow glazed brick fronting. I stuck a vintage insert I found on Craigslist in there - it barely fit but it managed. It keeps the room warm but not so much the rest of the house (it's single story).

The second story is in the remodeled (circa mid-70's I think) second bedroom turned into family room contiguous with kitchen area. It's got that distressed brick facing, including mantel, floor to ceiling. I put another old insert in that one - it's an interesting one, with articulated glass doors and a nice long squirrel cage blower. The more modern design seems to fit the fireplace design better than an older one might.

However, I haven't lit either one up in two winters now. Too busy, I guess, plus one must keep track of the "no burn days" in this area. But as soon as I clean up the clutter around them I'm planning on getting one or the other or both going for atmosphere. 

My favorite FP insert is the LOPI brand, but they can be a bit hard to find.

Stumbled across this. Malm apparently still makes metal, freestanding fireplaces in the US. One offering:

www.malmfireplaces.com/lancer.htm...

Since it's all metal, it might have better heating value than a "standard" fireplace...although, of course, wood stoves would be much better.

a lot of cities and counties around here require converting to gas if a major remodel is done to an existing home. 

I'm not aware of any requirements like that in my area (Western WA) but then I don't know the ins and outs of current codes/policies for major remodels. But I have to wonder if wood burning fireplaces might not one day be banned or at least heavily regulated. (There are sometimes burn bans at times here when air quality is a concern.)

There is a ban on older wood stoves in the Tacoma area. IIRC it's illegal to even own a woodstove that's not a newer EPA certified design. (The demands removal or permanently disabling the stove.) The only exception is when the stove is the only heat source. That apparently requires special approval. Note this stove ban applies to any stove--not just a sitatuion where someone decides to do a major remodel. You have 1980 family room with stove and that stove is no longer usable, even if the room is 100% 1980 down to the light bulbs in the ceiling fixture. (That area of Tacoma was a huge headache for air quality, so that may be why the rules are so strict.)

Interesting Craftsman (Gustav Stickley/Arts & Crafts era not Sears!) fireplace from early 20th century in a Craftsman publication that's on Archive.org. A prefab metal unit that could supply warm air to rooms other than the one the fireplace lived in. I wonder how well this fireplace worked... I wonder if many were sold, and how many of those might survive, too.

Link #1 is reasonably fast to open, but some pictures don't appear for me.

archive.org/stream/morecraftsman...

Link #2 for downloading the PDF. I found the pictures worked fine. (There is also a download PDF button on the page that link #1 opens).

archive.org/download/morecraftsm...

Fireplace is on PDF page 213 (page 198 on the page of the original publication itself).

One fireplace insert design I really admire is the Lopi. They are generally convective and don't need electrical power to warm a living space. I've seen older ones that look fantastic after many years of use.

And they are still being made.

This weekend, I did some cleaning/rearranging of the living room, and now have my own fireplace! It was quite a project getting all those bricks, and building it. And I honestly thought that the floor might collapse at one point. (Later I learned most people have the fireplace foundation in the foundation area of the house. Live and learn, I guess.) LOL

OK...no bricks. No real fireplace, either. But I set up a set of electric logs I have with an Ikea Lack-style end table. It sort of looks like a possible modern fireplace. To my eyes, it's less awful looking than those $60 Home Depot electric fireplaces. Although I think the electric logs would probably look better in either a real fireplace, or else a well designed fake fireplace.

A couple of photos. One is well lit, and the other is in a dark room (and IIRC no flash) to show the glow of the "fire".

Still, it amuses me for the moment...

LOL.

There were two brick fireplaces in this house when I got it in '97. Both had fire screens of some sort, and both had fake log sets in them. One had a cellophane wrapped cylinder that rotated horizontally, lit from inside with a standard light bulb. The cylinder had an approximation of flames colored on it. In front of that were fake logs with a translucent area. The other set was a bit more interesting. Instead of being motorized, it had a propeller on top that was designed to catch the warm air currents caused by the light bulb, and turned on the Z (vertical) axis. They both worked after a fashion, but after I sealed the front of the fireplaces with plexiglass, there wasn't enough air current in either of the fireplaces to turn the propeller. And I didn't like the noise the motorized fake log set made.

One thing that floored me is that while the fireplace in the 1941 era living showed signs of years of use, the fireplace in the '65 era family room was obviously added later on, and had no signs of ever being used. I found that hard to believe for a 30 year old fireplace.

I got some new grates for both fireplace and tested both with real fire. But fitting the plexiglass draft seals after a fire session was sort of a PITA.

After a while I replaced the plexiglass draft seals with good fitting fireplace inserts. Both work pretty well, although I think the '65 fireplace draws better than the '41.

Here's a picture of the inside of my logs. Just in case someone wonders about how they work. The plastic strips on the pole rotate. Presumably this reflects a bit of light, creating the flicker. These logs have several log pieces (real wood, too, I think) with a plastic "window" in the middle for the light to come through. The plastic part is colored to presumably add to the effect.

I can't say these logs are particularly convincing, but I think the plastic strips that rotate might be worn. I'm thinking they are probably intended to be silver, like tinsel. But the silver color is spotty now.

Years back, I had another set of logs. I mentioned them before. I used them the last year I lived in the house where I grew up. I can't really remember those, but I think there was only one bulb, and the flicker was created by a rotating drum of crinkled, reflective plastic. I can't remember them being particularly great; however, it did allow some use of that fireplace. I have a vugue memory that suggests we may have switched them on for Chirstmas, giving a last Christmas with a "fire" (of sorts) in the fireplace.

One thing that floored me is that while the fireplace in the 1941 era living showed signs of years of use, the fireplace in the '65 era family room was obviously added later on, and had no signs of ever being used. I found that hard to believe for a 30 year old fireplace.

That does seem unbelievable!

I don't know this for sure, but I can't imagine that a fireplace could be cleaned to look like new. (And who, but our Hyacinth would even think of trying such a thing?) Every fireplace I've ever seen has obvious signs of use inside--whether it's the fireplace I grew up with (1950 house, probably original fireplaces, both standard masonry), or the 2 fireplaces in a development house that my father once once owned (metal prefab units that look traditional once installed).

My Aunt and Uncle built a new home back in the early 80s.  They have  a fireplace downstairs that the use all the time.  The one in the living room upstairs has never had a fire in it.  So it is possible for a house with two fireplaces to have one with no usage. 

Well, you could build a back yard BBQ and face with that nice glazed stuff. Just make sure the bricks in the heat path can take the heat.