Heating house with wood fireplace

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  • Goodcat

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    Our fireplace is great. With good seasoned wood, it burns well and puts off a lot of heat. The fan blower in it is so weak, I have to leave the glass doors open and the fire chain mail looking deal closed, or barely any heat. Not sure if that’s normal, or needs an upgrade. When I do leave the glass doors open, the fireplace room gets 90+ degrees, but even with a fan going out of the room, doesn’t move the heat much from our fireplace room. Any thoughts on better circulating this heat throughout the house?
     

    stocknup

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    Maybe a picture of your stove would help ?.........but sounds as if your damper and draft controls aren`t working properly together .
    You shouldn`t have to have your doors open in order to get your wood to burn hot .......... but having a 90 degree room is a good thing and a good place to start .
    That being said , the heated air can get get stalled if you don`t have a good flow . I have a circular flow which allows that .
    You could try just running your furnace blower only to help circulate evenly . ( if you have a furnace ) It should pull the cold air into your "return " vent and should start evening out the air .
     

    eldirector

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    We have a wood stove insert. When it is burning well, even with these cold outdoors temps, the furnace drops back to it lowest setting. With the fireplace blower on high, the family room will get up around 70*. Actually a bit of a problem, as the furnace will shut off, and the REST of the house starts getting pretty cold. I need to run just the furnace blower at that point, to circulate the heat throughout the house.

    IMHO, if you have to have the fireplace OPEN to get heat, you are actually heat negative. You are putting way more hot air up the chimney than you are getting in the house. Does your fireplace have an external air intake, or only draw from the house? An external intake makes a MASSIVE difference.
     

    Jaybird1980

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    It should work better to have the fan blowing into the hot room, instead of trying to pull the air out of it. Use a fan close to the floor if possible.
     

    Leadeye

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    We heat the entire house with a Quadrafire 5500 insert. It draws it's combustion air from outside and has two blowers.
     

    churchmouse

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    Are you running the furnace fan full time to get the heat out into the hose.
    We heat with wood as well. The fan will keep the rest of the house livable depending on how cold it is. The -12 we saw yesterday meant we ran the front room with the stove up past 85+ to do this. The rooms stayed 68/70 all day.
     

    russc2542

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    I'm holiday-inn-express certified by virtue of spending the last week reading all sorts of stuff about stoves and fireplaces in preparation for putting a woodstove in. We need quite a bit more info to help you though starting with pics or diagram of the system.

    Has it ever worked better?
    Have you checked for rodent nests or other debris plugging the blower?
    Have you checked the combustion air-inlet for rodent nests or other debris?
    When was the last time the chimney was cleaned/inspected?
    Is it fed by room air or outside air?
    How old is your house? Any recent work like new windows and doors that seal better than the old ones?


    good way to kill a few hrs: https://chimneysweeponline.com/library.htm
     

    Goodcat

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    I’ll give that a read thx! House is 1988, chimney cleaned and inspected in the last couple years, but the fireplace has never produced or blown much heat at all. I’m glad I just figured out it can with the glass open! I’m beginning to think there is airflow restriction in the blower or just a weak old motor
     
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    I ran my fireplace all day yesterday and programmed my nest to run the furnace fan 15 minutes every hour. It was comfortable in every room except the living room where the fireplace is located. That room was a sweat lodge.
     

    churchmouse

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    I’ll give that a read thx! House is 1988, chimney cleaned and inspected in the last couple years, but the fireplace has never produced or blown much heat at all. I’m glad I just figured out it can with the glass open! I’m beginning to think there is airflow restriction in the blower or just a weak old motor

    We have a blower on the gas log in the attached family room.It does the lions share of heating that area until temps get 15* and below. We are on the 3rd blower in 12 years.
     

    woodsie57

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    I have an old wood stove in side a brick fireplace- had a similar problem, hot heating as much as it used to. Removed the blower housing, blew out huge clouds of dust that had built up over the years- big improvement.
     

    churchmouse

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    I ran my fireplace all day yesterday and programmed my nest to run the furnace fan 15 minutes every hour. It was comfortable in every room except the living room where the fireplace is located. That room was a sweat lodge.

    My Honeywell 8000 has a Circulate function on it. We use that at night but run the fan in the on position through the day.

    It is easier on the blower motor to start once and run. Get up to operating temp and roll through the day. It also costs less energy to do it this way.
     

    Leadeye

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    Are you running the furnace fan full time to get the heat out into the hose.
    We heat with wood as well. The fan will keep the rest of the house livable depending on how cold it is. The -12 we saw yesterday meant we ran the front room with the stove up past 85+ to do this. The rooms stayed 68/70 all day.

    I don't run the furnace fan/blower at all. Natural convection moves hot air from the blower in the basement across the ceiling then up the stairwell. The upstairs has an additional blower that works further up the chimney pipe. The house stays very evenly heated.
     

    churchmouse

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    I don't run the furnace fan/blower at all. Natural convection moves hot air from the blower in the basement across the ceiling then up the stairwell. The upstairs has an additional blower that works further up the chimney pipe. The house stays very evenly heated.

    Just like an old style gravity furnace. Not efficient but comfortable.
     

    Leadeye

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    Can't complain. The lower blower starts putting out heat about 10 minutes after the fire starts. After the ceiling heats up from air running from one end of the basement to the other where the stair well is, it keeps the upper level floors warmer. You can feel the colder air coming down the steps and running across the basement floor where it gets pulled into the primary blower.
     

    churchmouse

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    Can't complain. The lower blower starts putting out heat about 10 minutes after the fire starts. After the ceiling heats up from air running from one end of the basement to the other where the stair well is, it keeps the upper level floors warmer. You can feel the colder air coming down the steps and running across the basement floor where it gets pulled into the primary blower.

    This is how the old time Octopus gravity units worked. Convection.
     

    DeadeyeChrista'sdad

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    At best, an old open fireplace will be 20% efficient. Leadeye has what I'd call an ideal setup. A modern insert, professionally installed, will pay for itself surprisingly quickly if you do your part, and burn wood with under 20% moisture content. That means getting out asap and taking advantage of the current ashpocolypse.

    A note about ash and other dead wood. Just because it's dead doesn't mean the moisture content is right. It needs to be split and stacked to dry until it is. You can buy a cheap moisture meter at harbor freight for 13.00. It's more than good enough.
    Also, there is TONS of dead wood out there. I don't cut down dead trees unless it's just a gimmee. There's way too much already on the ground to risk a limb to the cranium if I dont have to. Dead trees (live ones too) have a bad habit of dropping limbs on one who is cutting on them.
     

    ghuns

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    ...A note about ash and other dead wood. Just because it's dead doesn't mean the moisture content is right. It needs to be split and stacked to dry until it is.

    Standing, dead ash holds a ton of moisture until it's cut up. And it rots pretty quickly if left standing too long.

    A buddy called and said he had woods FULL of dead ash trees the property owner said we could cut up. Like over a hundred. I have an outdoor boiler that's a hungry MFer, so I'm always looking for wood. When we got there, I plunged my saw into several of them, all were rotten. I think we cut up about ten that were decent.:rolleyes:

    I much prefer standing, dead elms that have dropped their bark.:yesway:
     

    mlockhart

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    I much prefer standing, dead elms that have dropped their bark.:yesway:

    That tells me you have a wood splitter.
    When I was a kid somebody gave us a load of Elm. Ax, Sledge, Wedge and Monster maul. I hated that stringy elm, it does burn good and hot. I think the main reason my parents put the stove in was to give me a chore. (get me out of the house) building muscle the old fashioned way. No gym memberships needed in the country! He said “split next years wood in the winter you get warm twice”
     

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