Old fireplace heating house in winter

[snafu]

I've read on these forums and elsewhere that you can't heat your house with a standard fireplace in the winter because most of the heat will go right up the flue, and in winter, it can actually pull warm air from the house up the chimney as well which cools the house down.

My question therefore is this. If this is truly the case, then how is it that people managed to stay warm for hundreds of years before we had fireplace inserts? Why does every old home have a fireplace in most every room if it really does suck all the heat up the flue? That doesn't seem to make any sense.

 

[Rearscreen]

This might answer your question: http://www.rumford.com/training/design.html
Fireplaces used to be good.

 

[jatoxico]

If there is no other source of heat then sitting in front of a fire is certainly the best option. But then of course you'll pretty much freeze your behind off compared to what we are accustomed to.

 

[snafu]

This might answer your question: http://www.rumford.com/training/design.html
Fireplaces used to be good.

Odd. My house was built in the mid-1800s and has the original fireplace in the main room. It looks much more like the 'modern' design than it does the Rumford so I'm not convinced that is the answer.

 

[snafu]

If there is no other source of heat then sitting in front of a fire is certainly the best option. But then of course you'll pretty much freeze your behind off compared to what we are accustomed to.

yeah but it wasn't just for sitting in front of...if that were the case they would all have huddled in front of it during the day/early evening then went to bed with a ton of blankets to stay warm. But lots of old buildings have a fireplace in every room so clearly it must have been an effective way of heating the room up without 'sucking all the warm air up the flue' or they would never have designed it that way. I don't dispute the fact that they probably went through a ton of wood, but if it wasn't effective at warming up the house it would never have evolved into that design

 

[jatoxico]

yeah but it wasn't just for sitting in front of...if that were the case they would all have huddled in front of it during the day/early evening then went to bed with a ton of blankets to stay warm. But lots of old buildings have a fireplace in every room so clearly it must have been an effective way of heating the room up without 'sucking all the warm air up the flue' or they would never have designed it that way. I don't dispute the fact that they probably went through a ton of wood, but if it wasn't effective at warming up the house it would never have evolved into that design

They had a fireplace in every room exactly because the fireplace didn't heat much more than the room it was in through radiant heat. And they did go bed with a ton of blankets and used bed warmers and woke up to cold houses. Better than nothing but not like central heat or a stove.

Ask yourself this, why did they invent stoves if fireplaces were doing the job?

 

[Rearscreen]

All I know is that was a type of fireplace design. I learned about it while looking to buy a house here in Vermont. In one house the owner built the Rumford fireplace to spec and it completely cooked him out of the room. I did not consider the house as it was built pole barn style with no basement. Nice house, no basement - non starter for me.
Why did they invent cars if walking was doing the job?

 

[snafu]

They had a fireplace in every room exactly because the fireplace didn't heat much more than the room it was in through radiant heat. And they did go bed with a ton of blankets and used bed warmers and woke up to cold houses. Better than nothing but not like central heat or a stove.

Ask yourself this, why did they invent stoves if fireplaces were doing the job?

Yeah but look at my initial question for the core of what I'm asking. The common knowledge I've read on here and other forums is that in winter a fireplace will literally suck heat out of the room and up the flue. If that is actually the case then fireplaces would never have been in houses. So why is it that everyone says that? Is it just hyperbole on their part? Or is it something different about older fireplaces vs our modern ones? That's what I'm driving at.

 

[jatoxico]

Rumford was an upgrade from the more inefficient design but fireplaces are at best 10% efficient and sometimes worse. If you are heating with a central heating system there is a very good chance you are operating at a net loss.

If you burn a ton of wood that needs volumes of air to combust you get some heat. So where does all that heat go?

 

[Simonkenton]

I built the fireplace at left and it is a Rumford. It does heat the house pretty well. First of all, it throws way more heat into the room than the non-Rumford style.

The most critical part of heating with a fireplace is having it inside the house, so that the back wall of the fireplace is an interior wall in the house.
Masonry has an R factor of about zero. Most fireplaces are on an exterior wall. So, on that 10 degree January day, when you are not running the fireplace, that cold temp is running right through all that masonry and into your house. Your furnace is running overdrive just to compensate for that.

With my fireplace, the back wall is the interior wall of the bathroom. On a 30 degree night, if I run the fireplace for 5 hours, it will heat that back wall up to 105 degrees. That is not very hot but I have 4 tons of masonry that is 105 degrees.
On the thirty degree night, I can run the fireplace for 5 hours at night and it will heat the entire house for 24 hours, will keep the living room at 66 degrees the entire next day.

Also, my fireplace throws heat into the living room like you wouldn't believe. We had to move the sofa back 3 feet because we were getting roasted.
I have never seen a fireplace that will heat as well as my fireplace does. Nevertheless, my fireplace uses 5 times as much wood as my wood stove uses.


Oh, as to the fireplace sucking all the heat up the chimney, hell yes it will do that. If you don't have an outside air intake for the fireplace you are just playing around.
When I built my fireplace I had an outside air intake, 5 inches by 5 inches.
That was not man enough for the job.
After several years, I had to add an additional outside air intake, which is 6 inches by 14 inches.

With both air intakes there is enough outside air to feed the fireplace.

 

[begreen]

Fireplaces old and new are not very efficient. They heat ok (especially Rumsford) with radiant heat, but as the fire cools down the chimney is sucking a large amount of air out of the room. This pulls heat from the house to be replaced with leaked outside air. Back in the old days folks had no choice so they just burned through a lot of wood. During the early 1700s my ancestors in upstate NY moved into the basement in the winter and lived there to take advantage of the earth's more even temps. There was a full fireplace down there which was used in the winters. Upstairs rooms were only used during milder sunny days.

 

[jatoxico]

Yeah but look at my initial question for the core of what I'm asking. The common knowledge I've read on here and other forums is that in winter a fireplace will literally suck heat out of the room and up the flue. If that is actually the case then fireplaces would never have been in houses. So why is it that everyone says that? Is it just hyperbole on their part? Or is it something different about older fireplaces vs our modern ones? That's what I'm driving at.

You said it yourself, you're sure they went through a ton of wood. Well a ton of wood takes a ton of air to burn. Almost all of that goes up the chimney and the air needs to be replaced. The air comes from outside. So sitting in front of the fire you feel radiant heat (read up on radiant vs convective) and the objects in the room warm some. But the air coming into all the other rooms that have no fire get colder and colder.

 

[Simonkenton]

The other thing about managing the Rumford fireplace is, you want that fire to go out so you can shut the damper.
As I said you must have an outside air intake.
Burning the fireplace is quite different from the wood stove. For the fireplace you do not want long lasting coals. You want to run a hot fire for 5 or 6 hours then you want that fire to go out so you can close the damper.
Close the damper, close the outside air intake, the that mass of masonry is radiating heat out into the house all night long. It will surely keep the house warm.

Once I have burned my fireplace for about 3 hours I leave the oak and locust alone, and switch to pine. I need that fire out after about 6 hours so I can close the damper.

 

[snafu]

I built the fireplace at left and it is a Rumford. It does heat the house pretty well. First of all, it throws way more heat into the room than the non-Rumford style.

The most critical part of heating with a fireplace is having it inside the house, so that the back wall of the fireplace is an interior wall in the house.
Masonry has an R factor of about zero. Most fireplaces are on an exterior wall. So, on that 10 degree January day, when you are not running the fireplace, that cold temp is running right through all that masonry and into your house. Your furnace is running overdrive just to compensate for that.

With my fireplace, the back wall is the interior wall of the bathroom. On a 30 degree night, if I run the fireplace for 5 hours, it will heat that back wall up to 105 degrees. That is not very hot but I have 4 tons of masonry that is 105 degrees.
On the thirty degree night, I can run the fireplace for 5 hours at night and it will heat the entire house for 24 hours, will keep the living room at 66 degrees the entire next day.

Also, my fireplace throws heat into the living room like you wouldn't believe. We had to move the sofa back 3 feet because we were getting roasted.
I have never seen a fireplace that will heat as well as my fireplace does. Nevertheless, my fireplace uses 5 times as much wood as my wood stove uses.


Oh, as to the fireplace sucking all the heat up the chimney, hell yes it will do that. If you don't have an outside air intake for the fireplace you are just playing around.
When I built my fireplace I had an outside air intake, 5 inches by 5 inches.
That was not man enough for the job.
After several years, I had to add an additional outside air intake, which is 6 inches by 14 inches.

With both air intakes there is enough outside air to feed the fireplace.

There we go, finally a real answer based on facts rather than speculation. Like yours, our chimney runs up thru the middle of the house so I'm guessing that is a big part of the equation was to centrally locate the chimneys and allow all that heat to heat the bricks up and radiate it into the house. It doesn't 'look' like a Rumford design from what I can tell, but I haven't examined it in detail. It may have certain properties of that design, I'll have to do more research. This will be our first year in the house so we have no idea how well it will heat the house, but the previous owner used to run it all winter and burn through a couple cords of wood with it so I'm willing to bet that it does a good (though inefficient) job of heating the house. Long term plan is to have an insert of course but for now we don't have the money for it.

I need that fire out after about 6 hours so I can close the damper.

Yep, that's my plan too, it will be interesting to see how well it works out in practice

Thanks for the detailed reply

 

[jatoxico]

There we go, finally a real answer based on facts rather than speculation.

"There we go the answer that I wanted to hear."

woodheat.org

 

[Simonkenton]

The Rumford design is very shallow. You might have a 40 inch wide fireplace that is only 14 inches deep. Mine is slightly deeper and is about 17 inches deep. Most of the fireplaces built in the last hundred years are shaped like a box and are very deep and the sides are not angled. The Rumford was invented in 1779 but the design was lost for many decades, not sure why.

Get that thing inspected by an expert, no matter if the previous owner used it, lots of things can go wrong with an old fireplace and it might need crucial repairs.

You can't beat the ambiance of a good 'ol American fireplace but like I said, even the best fireplace uses five times as much wood as a wood stove.
Fire that thing up and give us a report on how well it heats, I am interested.

 

[snafu]

"There we go the answer that I wanted to hear."

woodheat.org

Butthurt because I'm not buying what you're selling? Get over yourself buddy.

I asked a specific question, you didn't answer it at all, you just repeated the same mantra I was asking about in the first place...that's not helpful and it's not even an answer. Simonkenton at least is trying to help me get to the bottom of it, you could learn something from him.

 

[webby3650]

The truth is, no fireplace will heat a house. Period. The settlers you mentioned did survive, to an average age of 29! Not many people today are looking to just survive. Fireplaces will throw radiant heat directly in front of the fireplace, while the rest of the house suffers. A fireplace pulls approximately 200 cubic feet of air out of your house a minute. You don't have to believe it, but it's a fact.

 

[jatoxico]

Butthurt because I'm not buying what you're selling? Get over yourself buddy.

I asked a specific question, you didn't answer it at all, you just repeated the same mantra I was asking about in the first place...that's not helpful and it's not even an answer. Simonkenton at least is trying to help me get to the bottom of it, you could learn something from him.

Yeah OK. Simon's a good guy and is telling you you'll use 5x more wood than a stove and might get some heat. You don't have the requisite knowledge to understand what is really settled science and only want to hear what you want. A fireplace will send 400-600 cfm of air up the stack but go ahead and enjoy yourself.

 

[twd000]

I've read reports of Colonial era homes burning through 20-30 cords of wood per winter. That is a STAGGERING amount of labor for me to comprehend

http://www.danallosso.net/B/files/tag-colonial.html
Other source is Nature Wars by Jim Streba

 

[snafu]

Yeah OK. Simon's a good guy and is telling you you'll use 5x more wood than a stove and might get some heat. You don't have the requisite knowledge to understand what is really settled science and only want to hear what you want. A fireplace will send 400-600 cfm of air up the stack but go ahead and enjoy yourself.

And you lack the basic reading ability to understand the question being asked and prefer to preach from your pulpit of ignorance.

I'll reiterate the question for you, since you're too thick to remember and/or address it properly:

My question therefore is this. If this is truly the case, then how is it that people managed to stay warm for hundreds of years before we had fireplace inserts? Why does every old home have a fireplace in most every room if it really does suck all the heat up the flue? That doesn't seem to make any sense.

The point you're hopelessly missing is simple. People have had fireplaces in their homes for hundreds and hundreds of years. That would NEVER have happened or evolved that way if they were not at least semi-efficient at heating the homes they were in. No one is trying to say they're not inefficient or impracticable compared to today's technology. But the fact remains that either the hyperbole is obviously way over the top on the subject (which after reading your posts seems the most likely) or there are distinct design elements that are at play that you are ignoring. It is the latter I am interested in, not your nonsense so you really need not reply any further to this thread. Buh bye now.

 

[Simonkenton]

" Simon's a good guy and is telling you you'll use 5x more wood than a stove and might get some heat."

No, I didn't say you might get some heat. I said that you will get massive amounts of heat, tens of thousands of BTU/hr, with a properly designed and properly used fireplace.

 

[begreen]

And you lack the basic reading ability to understand the question being asked and prefer to preach from your pulpit of ignorance.

I'll reiterate the question for you, since you're too thick to remember and/or address it properly:

The point you're hopelessly missing is simple. People have had fireplaces in their homes for hundreds and hundreds of years. That would NEVER have happened or evolved that way if they were not at least semi-efficient at heating the homes they were in. No one is trying to say they're not inefficient or impracticable compared to today's technology. But the fact remains that either the hyperbole is obviously way over the top on the subject (which after reading your posts seems the most likely) or there are distinct design elements that are at play that you are ignoring. It is the latter I am interested in, not your nonsense so you really need not reply any further to this thread. Buh bye now.

Insults are not warranted or appreciated. Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.