Open fires and older wood stoves are only good for radiant heat, and admittedly they do make a lot of it and are wonderful to sit near when they're lit. However, all this radiant heat masks the fact they're actually energy hogs that take more heat out the house than they put in to it. Fires use a vast amount of air from inside the house, in fact they will exhaust about 500 cubic foot a minute up the chimney which is enough to suck all the air out a 1000 sq. foot house every 15 minutes... This rate of air exchanges is similar to opening all the windows or turning on a big power vent. This exhasted air will have allready been heated by the boiler/furnace, thus you're not just losing the heat from the fire right up the chimney but also the fuel in the boiler, which will normally respond to this huge rush of cold air in to the house by running constantly for as long as the fire is lit. As for the radiant heat, as comfortable as it feels the moment it touches something solid like the walls or you it becomes convected heat and will quickly be sucked out with all that air. None of the heat actually remains in the house. Unfortunatly nothing will fix this other than a good fireplace insert, or just not using the fireplace. The glass doors are supposed to help, but frankly they don't cut down the air flow that much or the fire would just smoulder, and besides that heat resistant glass significantly reduces radiant heat so you would block the one good thing about your old fireplace. The iron fireback will radiate more heat in to the room and give you a warmer feeling fire, but it still gets sucked out soon afterwards, so it doesn't fix the main problem. An insert provides plenty of radiant heat and has an air exchanger to send heated air in to the house, not suck it out. They also burn cleaner and are generally safer and better for the environment as they not only use the fuel efficiently but also make far less smoke pollution. Unless you're a very occasional fireplace user an insert is more than worth the money, in fact with regular use it could pay for itself by replacing a more expensive source of heat like natural gas or electric.

Wow, well how old is your A/C? A heatpump isn't much more than a regular A/C in cost. They make heat for much cheaper than oil. What is your climate like? Are you in extreme cold weather zone like minnesota? Is your house leaky/drafty? Do you know how much your electricity costs? Heatpumps work really well above 30 degrees. They still can keep your house warm at lower temperatures too but it isn't as comfy. They don't work as well if your house is drafty (old 50's windows and no attic insulation). If your A/C is old you should replace with a heatpump because it doesn't cost much over the regular a/c.

No offense meant at all, but you may want to pound some books or find someone that has a basic working knowledge of the system to avoid a soaking by a less than honest contractor (for the case that you run across one). Does your lifestyle fit a wood and/or coal boiler (are you home enough to tend it) or is a pellet system an option? Adding additional radiators SHOULDN'T be a problem, just a matter of extending water lines. I am in Germany and am not sure how the older systems in the States were, but older systems here ran the system in a series (output from boiler went to input of radiator then OP of rad went to IP of next radiator and so on with OP of last in the chain going to the return on the boiler). Newer systems (last 30-40 years or more) had a continuois loop from OP to return on the boiler with radiators tied in along the way (this way, every radiator could work independently and all would heat up the same regardless of where in the chain. Good Luck, Dave

You can replace the present stove with one that has glass doors if you wish to increase the ambiance. You might be able to add another stove on the opposite wall, using the same flue. These changes are not a DIY project.