Fireplace
by
Deborah C
We are looking to purchase a fireplace blower/insert. We have a 2 story home with many divided rooms on first floor. Can anyone recommend or explain the difference between the two?
2 answers
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In terms of usable or felt heat a free standing wood stove provides the most output. Next in line would be an insert with a blower, at the bottom of the list is a plain fireplace or insert without a blower. we have a large blower insert in our living room which is open to the dinning area and an upper "loft". We also have a freestanding wood stove in the master bedroom ( about 800 sq feet). We used to experience many power outages pretty much year round, during the winter this was problematic as the blower in our primary living room unit would not run. The free standing unit in the bedroom allows us to easily make one room warm during these outages. Wood stoves are rated in BTU / hour with about 60,000 serving 1500 to 1600 sq feet. 85,000 btu' serving about 2400 sq ft. Obviously a large 80,000 btu unit may heat 2400 sq feet but getting the heat to many "divided rooms" is not very easy and running a big unit in a smaller space often over heats that space. We heat our small cabin with a simple Scandia 150, which is based on the JOTUL 602, just a few splits work great. Check out this article I wrote http://www.networx.com/article/eco-friendly-woodstove-choices If I had a huge budget I would go with a large masonry soapstone unit like one of these http://virginiaradiant.com/highlands_sd.html
KMS Woodworks
on Oct 25, 2013
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The insert is a unit to insert into a fireplace opening. Blower is a fan to blow the heat into the room from the insert. Totally agree about the lack of heat distribution in the paragraph "Obviously a large 80,000 BTU..... Those who say a large amount of BTUs will cover an area is true BUT ONLY if there are no walls and it is a completely open area. Heat (or air conditioning) does not travel easily from one room to another. Most people WITHOUT actual experience will tell you there is enough BTUs. Yes, enough to roast you in one room and to freeze in another room. Unfortunately in a store the clerk who has no heating experience will tell you the sq ft it will heat an area, you take the unit home and find yourself "in a pickle" after it is installed and does not do the job in distributing heat to multiple rooms. This may sound radical but a smaller properly sized unit in each room will do a great job. Since I am not selling anything to make a profit on multiple items, I am not gaining anything. I am telling you from my unfortunate experience. Many of the units with fans have a low power consumption fan so you may want to use a power backup to run the fan when the electricity goes off. Check the wattage of the fan and the power capacity of the backup power supply so you are not caught short on the amount of output to run the fan for a reasonable amount of time. We oftentimes do not appreciate electricity until it goes off. Some of the propane units have radiant heat so they will radiate heat without a fan (blower).
Lrc225795
on Oct 26, 2013
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