Building a house. I need help with a fireplace decision.

[DinkyDau]

If you want to use it for heat, go with a wood stove, not a fireplace.

I use a wood stove for most of my heating and a heat pump for those milder but still cold nights.

Your 5 grand option sounds like a fireplace/woodstove hybrid. Much better efficiency and lower cost with a real woodstove, open on all sides to the room and not built into a wall.

I have to go along with the wood burning stove like the Big Bear..I wish when I built our home 18 years ago I had done that..I have replaced the back wall multiple times, due to the brides slinging a piece of wood in..With a wood burner you can control the air flow to slow down the burn rate of the wood...Get one with a fan with direction vents and you can heat a big area quickly..Just an idea.

 

[Plinker66]

I heated a house in N.C. with a wood stove for three years. It’s a pain in the butt feeding the stove and you and your family will be breathing dirty air the whole time.

https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/wood-smoke

https://www.epa.gov/burnwise/wood-smoke-and-your-health

 

[jeep78]

I have to go along with the wood burning stove like the Big Bear..I wish when I built our home 18 years ago I had done that..I have replaced the back wall multiple times, due to the brides slinging a piece of wood in..With a wood burner you can control the air flow to slow down the burn rate of the wood...Get one with a fan with direction vents and you can heat a big area quickly..Just an idea.

I bought my woodstove before I started building my house. It was simple to incorporate it into the design from the start instead of retrofitting it into the structure once it was up.

 

[batoncolle]

Any reason you don't want to go with a propane fireplace? I just built a house as well, and we went with a propane fireplace. I set it up so I could run a generator off the propane also so it does double duty. I spent about $100 over this last winter on propane, and when you run the fireplace it really heats up the house. The heat pump usually wouldn't kick on until 1 or 2am in the morning.

 

[GFB]

Any reason you don't want to go with a propane fireplace? I just built a house as well, and we went with a propane fireplace. I set it up so I could run a generator off the propane also so it does double duty. I spent about $100 over this last winter on propane, and when you run the fireplace it really heats up the house. The heat pump usually wouldn't kick on until 1 or 2am in the morning.

Did you but your own propane tank or go through a supplier?

 

[batoncolle]

Did you but your own propane tank or go through a supplier?

Bought my own so I wouldn't be tied to a supplier.

 

[GFB]

Bought my own so I wouldn't be tied to a supplier.

The low cost of propane you mentioned made me suspect that.

 

[Don231s]

Any reason you don't want to go with a propane fireplace? I just built a house as well, and we went with a propane fireplace. I set it up so I could run a generator off the propane also so it does double duty. I spent about $100 over this last winter on propane, and when you run the fireplace it really heats up the house. The heat pump usually wouldn't kick on until 1 or 2am in the morning.

This. ^ I had vent free gas logs in my last house. Kick that sucker on, and it got toasty mighty fast. Plus, I had a source of backup heat, less the blower, when there was a power outage.

 

[Granite3]

Grew up with a home made insert, then got the deluxe after a few years.

The Den and kitchen were 110 degrees, hall was 70 and the back bedrooms were about outside ambient......

With the original home made insert, it was not suprising to have a skim of ice on the back bathroom toilet in the morning.

Electric blankets were the only way you stayed warm.

The vent free gas logs are the bomb, warms everything, cheap to run, and should be less than a grand.

 

[Horsehat]

Building a house, and we are putting a fireplace in. We have some choices, and our contract slotted us around 2 grand for the fireplace, which gets us a basic fireplace, with the wire mesh, and folding glass doors, and a blower.
We can also upgrade to a high efficiency fireplace, for around an extra $5000 out of pocket. It’s an iron box, locking door, blowers, and all the bells and whistles. I’ve only ever had the high efficiency fire places growing up and in rentals.

We live in middle GA, and we all know how mild the winters are, but I would still probably try to heat my house with the fireplace when it’s cool outside. It is rated to heat our square footage, but I suspect the bedrooms will stay a bit cooler than the areas surrounding the fireplace.

Can anyone lend some input? Is the high efficiency worth the extra money/ will it pay for itself in power savings? Or should I get the basic box, and spend the extra money on upgrading other things?

Either way the $5000 will get spent somewhere on the house, and not on guns

We heat exclusively with wood. If you are going to heat with wood on a financially feasible basis you need to have equipment to cut, split and transport wood as well as a place to cut the wood. If you don’t enjoy cutting, stacking, hauling in wood or if you or your family will be bothered by the increased dust and debris that inevitably falls off the wood or anyone has asthma think long and hard about this.
It isn’t a financial decision for us as we could afford to heat either way but a lifestyle decision. I have access, equipment, time and I enjoy cutting wood. My wife and I both like backing up to the heater on cold nights. We sleep better in colder bedrooms, we keep the door closed so it will not heat the bedroom so we would not consider the colder bedroom a negative.
We have a wood stove, not a fireplace insert, I think air quality in our house is good it never smells smoky. But I know people with asthma who react poorly to wood smoke.