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Best Fireplace for heating home
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Kandacarlson
Posted 11/17/2022 13:20 (#9936642 - in reply to #9933604)
Subject: RE: Best Fireplace for heating home


South of topeka
I have the exact same fireplace, but the doors are different on mine.
Or, they were, when we bought the house. House was built in 1979/1980
By my prior research, it's a heatilator, I think EP series, but I don't have confirmation on that.
I'm in NE Kansas and by your user name, you may be as well?
Our house is about 5000+ sq ft. We have two high efficiency heat pumps, one for each level, but when it gets below 25F or so, as you may know, the heat pumps add the auxiliary (resistance) heat in the HVAC stacks to keep it warm as there ain't as much heat to extract from outside 20 degree air!
When both pumps are on high with aux heat on full in both stacks, my smart meter says that the system is consuming 44,000W! That's not a typo. I have seen the bills.
When that happens, loading the heatilator with some high BTU wood and keeping the fan on, and also using the fans to slowly circulate air on both the HVAC systems throughout the house, both heat pumps and aux heat assemblies will totally shut off! Meaning, I'm heating the entire house with just this fireplace!
Only problem is keeping the kids busy moving wood to keep the firebox hot.
I burn about 2 cords per year in it and am very selective with what goes in there, no unseasoned wood, no pine, etc. I have it inspected and cleaned yearly and every year the fireplace guys remark that we "must hardly use the fireplace at all" given that there's minimal creosote or other evidence of use. Little do they know...
All in all, it's a pretty good machine. Been doing this for 10 years of Kansas winters.
We replaced the old doors which were quite crappy on ours, with a newer set, carefully installed from Amazon. I was skeptical, given usually poor quality made in China crap from them, but the doors we put in look and function great for the last 8 years. If your doors are functional and work and seal well, I'd leave em alone. They look heavy duty. Your doors look like they have combustion air controls in them and our system has a minimally controllable outside combustion air intake into the bottom front of the fire box instead of using room air for combustion and thereby decreasing negative indoor pressure with losses out the chimney.
It's not as efficient as a good stove honestly and it can go through a lot of wood, but thankfully we're blessed with an easily accessible plentiful supply of good wood for $0.
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