Please Help on Fireplace Choice

[dougummel]

Hello. Newbie here in Central Indiana. After doing a bunch of reading, I was wondering if I could solicit some input.

We are currently building a new house and are trying to decide which fireplace to put in. After a bunch of research, we have come up against a question. We are going very energy efficient (Energy Star +) and will have a pretty tight house. Our home will be 3000 square feet on two stories over a full unfinished walkout basement. We will also have an apartment over the garage that will be another 700+ square feet. It will be on the same HVAC loop. Oh, we are doing Geo-thermal too.

Our question is whether a large fireplace will heat us right out of the downstairs. We have a very open floorplan downstairs. The living room (where the fireplace will be) is 15x27 open to the dining room (15x16) open to the kitchen (15x15). 9' ceilings. I want a non-cat fireplace and we have been looking pretty hard at the Montecito (regular or estate?) and the Heat&Glo;Northstar 4500.

Any input on any of our thoughts or random things to consider would be MUCH appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[webbie]

My initial thinking is that as long as you go to or below about a 2.5 cubic foot firebox, you should be OK.

Another forum member is doing something similar, but looking at RSF because they can tie into the house ductwork and spread some of the heat to other areas. So that may be a consideration. But with that sized rooms and open doorways, tall celings and perhaps a stairway not too far away - you should be fine.

 

[lumbajac]

My initial thinking is that as long as you go to or below about a 2.5 cubic foot firebox, you should be OK.

Another forum member is doing something similar, but looking at RSF because they can tie into the house ductwork and spread some of the heat to other areas. So that may be a consideration. But with that sized rooms and open doorways, tall celings and perhaps a stairway not too far away - you should be fine.

I believe that would be me looking into a similar situation. I will be builing 2400+ sq.ft. new home in Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Will be very well insulated with 6" walls containing blown in cellulose plus 1" Blueboard on the outside, on top of the OSB sheeting. Will also be using insulated concrete forms for a very well insulated basement. Garage will be insulated, much like the house, but don't plan on heating it... insulation and engine heat from cars should keep it warm enough to melt snow off of my vehicles.

So, we have similar situations... you can look through all my postings (lumbajac). I started by looking into wood gasification boilers with hot water storage, which in the end didn't make financial sense with new home construction. Then went to free-standing soapstone woodstove and was pretty well set on a Woodstock Fireview. Then, I was at a neighbor of my in-laws who put a zero clearance fireplace in his new home construction. Many of these units offer the ability to duct heat to other parts of the house by dedicated ductwork and some you can duct the heat to your central heating system ductwork for whole house distribution. The zero-clearance units can also be installed into a traditionally framed box if you will, then veneered with cutured stone or whatever you choose to look like a traditional fieldstone, brick, etc. fireplace. I plan on burning wood 24/7 and using it as my primary heat souce with natural gas forced air lingering in the background as backup and/or something to fall back on if I ever sell or no longer want to make firewood.

I researched several units, asked many, many, many questions on hearth.com, received a lot of feedback, and as of today have decided to purchase the RSF Opel2 Zero-Clearnace fireplace. Take a look at the RSF website at http://www.icc-rsf.com/en/fireplaces/accueil_foyer.asp. Mull around in here a bit. If you open up the Catalog .pdf file and scroll to the Opel2, there will be diagrams of the central heating option that I speak of above.

There are quite a few other units available. The main ones I really looked hard at were the Fireplace Xtrordinaire, Napolean Big Country, Quadrafire 7100, and the RSF Opel2. I rather quickly narrowed it down to the Quadrafire 7100 and RSF Opel2. I've spend about 3 days looking really in-depth into each and asking a lot of questions regarding each. I found that you cannot duct the Quadrafire 7100 directly into your central heating system, which is an option I really wanted. I found that with the RSF Opel2 you can duct into your central heating, the unit is very efficient in terms of EPA regulations, the unit uses secondary combustion making it very efficient and EPA exempt or you can add a catalytic kit at any time to make it EPA certified, the unit has a very wide range thermal output of 10,000 - 70,000 BTU's that is controlled by a bimetallic damper (which you can read about in their catalog I speak of above), and the unit was very much to my taste in terms of how it looks.

Will be purchasing and installing the RSF Opel2 this summer.

lumbajac

 

[eloise]

Have you gotten your RSF Opel? How do you like it?