Need large common room fireplace safe for asthma

18 years ago

For 20 years I have had a woodburning stove. It heats our 600sq. ft. common area really well and doesn't bother my asthma- even with outside temps that sometimes get into the teens, so it gets lots of use. But we are building a home and our new great room is 1600sq ft. We want to use the fireplace as our main source of heating in this area. Plus to not be overpowered esthetically by the size of the room, our architect wants us to put in a fireplace instead of a stove. He suggests a Rumford but I am uneasy having something unsealed with asthma. My husband wants to stay with a woodburning.

What type fireplace or woodburning stove would you recommend? And if we stay with a woodburning stove how can we keep it from being swollowed up esthetically by the size of the room?

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Comments (9)

the_guad
18 years ago
In a new home, I would look into a masonry heater.
http://www.mha-net.org/

Masonry heaters can be customized to fit into your home perfectly, but as a work of art they are definitely more expensive than even the largest inserts... or so I've heard.
the_guad
18 years ago
Do yourself a favor and make sure that your chimney is placed in the center of your home and not an exterior wall.

Best of luck to you!
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kats
Original Author
18 years ago
the guad, First of all thanks for the masonry heater link. They look interesting. Do you have one?
We did design our new fireplace in the center of the g-room which also is in the center of the house. The back of the fireplace shares a wall with a bedroom. What is the reason to center a chimney, heat loss?
the_guad
18 years ago
I don't have one and I can't get one because: my chimney is on the outside of my house (so it would be a waste of money), my floor won't support it, and my wallet can't support the upgrades required for it (floor and chimney). However, if I were building a new home I would get one for the center of the house and possibly an insert for other sections of the house where you need faster heat and don't want to have to rely on your central hvac.

Also, when you design your air returns make sure you take the heat from your wood burning appliance into account since you can use your hvac fan to distribute it around your house if it's in a good location. I won't go on in detail because I'm no expert but there are plenty of stories on this forum.

As for the chimney... There are lots of problems with a chimney being on the outside of your house. It's terribly inefficient since you really can't get the masonry mass hot due to the majority of it being in an uninsulated space and that will cause it to cool down extremely quickly and possibly cause a downdraft when your coals aren't hot enough to sustain the upward draft. Read through this forum and the one on hearth.com and you'll get all the info you need.

I would definitely consider calling in an engineer with experience in 1) masonry heaters, 2) air distribution and 3) plumbing (because some people run hot water pipes through masonry heaters for radiant heating - BONUS!!!). Don't work with the architect alone, make sure you have some experts in there somewhere. It may cost you more up front, but I think it's definitely worth it on the back end.

Oh yeah, are you going to get the house pre-wired for an alarm? If so, good idea and that's a discussion for another forum. ;-)
kats
Original Author
18 years ago
guad, thanks for all the info. Yes, we will be doing an alarm and have already planned to pre-wire for both the alarm and stereo systems.
fsq4cw
18 years ago
The best wood burning option is certainly the masonry heater. No other wood-burning appliance even comes close to matching their efficiency or their beauty!

SR

Here is a link that might be useful: how-efficient-is-it-magazine.com
kats
Original Author
18 years ago
fsq4cw, thanks for the link. I read it then sent it to DH's computer at work. This may be a dumb question but do you have any idea how long the fire actually burns if it requires such a quick fire? DH loves to get the flame to do a slow "dance" in our woodburning stove while we're sitting around at night watching TV. Do masonry's burn long enough to enjoy them as well as be warmed by them???
the_guad
18 years ago
That's actually a great question. On the mha-net site it states that a full load should last approximately 1.5 hours, but that really depends on the draft and the wood. There's definitely no slow dance since the purpose of the flame is to heat up the masonry mass as hot as possible.

However, I'm sure this is counter intuitive, but maybe you can get a separate hearth built into your masonry heater and put a direct vent gas fireplace put in it. That's what I like about the masonry heater idea, it's very flexible... but again, that's why it's expensive too.
the_guad
18 years ago
It really sounds like I'm pushing this masonry heater thing on everyone lately. Check out this other thread for additional info:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/firepl/msg1216230821634.html?18

Need large common room fireplace safe for asthma

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Need large common room fireplace safe for asthma

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