Wood burning fireplace efficiency

I was wondering if running a wood burning fireplace does much to help with the heating bill. At the cabin we have one right in the middle of it, with a stone chimney running up through the roof. I like to really get if huffing when I’m there in the winter, and it makes for a nice atmosphere. This is kind of an old school one, with the chain screen you can pull shut, glass doors and a manual flue. I believe the build date on the house is 1970. Anyways I’m just asking out of curiosity as either way it’s already there.

Nothing beat a crackling fire. However I don’t think they are terribly efficient and they are dirty as far as hauling wood in and cleaning the ash and stuff.

We have one in the middle of our house and never use it. Thing smokes us out more than anything and don’t give off much heat.
For all you fireplace buffs, is there anything you can do to have it put out more heat and less smoke? A fan of some sort or an insert? I don’t know $hit about fireplaces. Maybe I just need to clean the chimney part?
Would be nice for emergency reasons like a couple weeks ago when my 30 year old furnace finally died.

If it smokes you out, something is wrong with it in my opinion. There’s a little more smoke initially, but once I get hot coles in mine there’s very little smoke. If you are using wet wood you’ll have a lot more smoke coming off the fire.

Make sure your damper is open when you light it. You can start closing it down once the fire heats the stove & pipe.

I think thats right anyway.

Our fireplace at our lake property is basically all we use. It is an Accucraft that we replaced the original with. It uses 100percent outside air for combustion. It then uses a heat chamber combined with fan to blow the heat out into the room. We have electric for backup and to keep things from freezing in winter when we come home. Burns way more efficient. No smoke if you close glass door. I have had a couple cold ones and put to many logs on the fire at night and woke up in middle of night and the main floor of cabin is almost 80 degrees in winter. Our place is two stories and heats both real well.

I am sure any fireplace helps to some degree on the heating bill.
And if it is smoking you out you have some kind of draft issue.

I like what Ripjiggen said about putting a insert in it. The inserts they make now are more efficient and some have fans built in to reclaim some of the heat going up the chimney. I also have have noticed that when I first start a fire it sometimes smoke a lot at the start, so I open a outside door to even the pressure in the house until there is a good flame that warms up the chimney and creates a good draw. (The smoking should stop right away once the pressure is released).
You need to get the chimney warmed up fast to create that draw ( I like to use newspapers or small kindling to do this.
If that does not work see if you can extend the chimney height above the the roof more to get more draw.

My parents have a Wilkening fireplace in the middle of their place and it will keep it warm in there with very little wood. You can throw 3 or 4 logs on before bed and they are still going when you wake up in the morning.

I have a wood burning fire place in my home, it has this type of grate in it

glassfireplacedoors.com/masonry-fireplace-doors/cozy-grate/

Pulls air in from the living room, thru the steel tubing and pushes out hot air. I would say it helps heat my living room, into the kitchen some and down the hall (ranch style house).

I burn thru quite a bit of wood though, its not as efficient as a wood stove or an enclosed fireplace insert

eyeguy507 wrote:

We have one in the middle of our house and never use it. Thing smokes us out more than anything and don’t give off much heat.
For all you fireplace buffs, is there anything you can do to have it put out more heat and less smoke? A fan of some sort or an insert? I don’t know $hit about fireplaces. Maybe I just need to clean the chimney part?
Would be nice for emergency reasons like a couple weeks ago when my 30 year old furnace finally died.

Sounds like it’s not drafting properly.
Not enough make up air.
Flue not properly sized.
or their may be some type of restriction in the flue ie bird nest

Like others have said. The key is combustible air from the outside (Just like your gas burning furnace). Otherwise you’re just sucking the air from the surrounding rooms and sending all the heat out through the chimney. Fans are nice for the immediate surrounding area, but the exterior rooms wont benefit and may even get colder if they have drafty windows, etc. And if you have a well-sealed house or cabin, you could create a negative pressure and your fireplace could back-up into your house. It happened to me in a house I used to own that had a franklin stove in the basement. I thought it would be a good way to cut the heating bill since it was on the lower level and the heat would naturally rise. It would work for a while and then it would start pulling air down through the chimney. There were also some other issues like a 4 ft horizontal run in the stove pipe to get to the wall which didn’t help matters – I think it allowed the exhaust to cool and I lost a lot of updraft, it was hard to keep the chimney heated and the air moving the right way.

eyeguy507 wrote:

We have one in the middle of our house and never use it. Thing smokes us out more than anything and don’t give off much heat.

I’d get a chimney guy out to check it out, you may have a minor issue or a major one. In either case it’s a good idea to periodically have it inspected, and any issues fixed.

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eyeguy507 wrote:</div>
We have one in the middle of our house and never use it. Thing smokes us out more than anything and don’t give off much heat.

I’d get a chimney guy out to check it out, you may have a minor issue or a major one. In either case it’s a good idea to periodically have it inspected, and any issues fixed.

I see that most of the smoke gets sucked up but after a while the house smells like a bonfire and it gets a slight haze. I am not burning hardwood btw just all the trees I have had to cut down on my property over the years. its all super dry but its a mix of willow, maple and some others as well. Im gonna hop up on the roof this spring and see if there is any obstruction. otherwise I will look at an insert possibly?

Not all masonry fireplaces are created equal. The dimensions have a lot to do with how they heat. Rumford fireplace is one of the better ones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumford_fireplace

We have a Cozy Heat Fireplace in our Log Home. Its an air-tight unit that uses outside air into the combustion chamber. It has triple wall chimney that has its own air duct that pulls fresh outside air up between the chimney walls to keep the outside pipe cool to the touch. It is extremely efficient and easy to maintain. Last week-end we had _30 temp and it kept the main floor and the loft at 73 deg. with-out our geothermal running at all. The main floor and the loft total 2500 sq.ft. The basement stayed slightly cooler at 69 deg. The units that draw outside air are the only way to go IMO. You still get the mess from wood in the house but I can live with that I guess.

My FIL bought house with a fireplace in it and it was messy and not very efficient. After 2 years he had a gas insert installed. Worked great and was more efficient than the furnace.