I'm building a new house and have some questions about putting a fireplace in it. The house will come with a standard contractor-grade fireplace but I'd like something better. I've been looking at a lot of the high-efficiency fireplaces and like what I see but have a few questions about them. I don't think these questions are specific to any one model.
Some background: This is strictly for auxiliary heating and backup, it is not prime heat. The house will have a bonus room upstairs over the kitchen. The fireplace will be in the corner of the living room sharing a wall with the master bedroom and the back exterior wall. The kitchen/breakfast area is on the other side of the living room. That living room, kitchen and breakfast area are pretty open and that should heat well. There are two bedrooms on the other side of the kitchen and two more rooms at the front of the house that I don't really care about.
What I'd like to do is run some "gravity" ducting (not a forced air kit) to the master bedroom and the upstairs bonus room. The bedroom seems obvious since it shares a wall with the fireplace and the bonus room is about 18 feet away horizontally (over the kitchen) and is also on the same back wall so it should be an easy run (I'm a little worried about the distance though).
Do these non-forced air ducts generally work well? I don't expect a tremendous amount of heat, just enough to keep the room warm. They should both return air well (leaving the doors open of course), especially the bonus room since the cool air should run downstairs.
I will have a blower on the furnace - will these ducts work with and without the blower? I'd normally run it with the blower but I'd like to know if it will work in a power outage.
Can I make the vents closable so that I can send all the warm air to the living room or warm one or both rooms?
Would I be better off just running the ducts out 3-4 feet above the fireplace to get a good draft for power outages and forget trying to warm the other rooms?
Some background: This is strictly for auxiliary heating and backup, it is not prime heat. The house will have a bonus room upstairs over the kitchen. The fireplace will be in the corner of the living room sharing a wall with the master bedroom and the back exterior wall. The kitchen/breakfast area is on the other side of the living room. That living room, kitchen and breakfast area are pretty open and that should heat well. There are two bedrooms on the other side of the kitchen and two more rooms at the front of the house that I don't really care about.
What I'd like to do is run some "gravity" ducting (not a forced air kit) to the master bedroom and the upstairs bonus room. The bedroom seems obvious since it shares a wall with the fireplace and the bonus room is about 18 feet away horizontally (over the kitchen) and is also on the same back wall so it should be an easy run (I'm a little worried about the distance though).
Do these non-forced air ducts generally work well? I don't expect a tremendous amount of heat, just enough to keep the room warm. They should both return air well (leaving the doors open of course), especially the bonus room since the cool air should run downstairs.
I will have a blower on the furnace - will these ducts work with and without the blower? I'd normally run it with the blower but I'd like to know if it will work in a power outage.
Can I make the vents closable so that I can send all the warm air to the living room or warm one or both rooms?
Would I be better off just running the ducts out 3-4 feet above the fireplace to get a good draft for power outages and forget trying to warm the other rooms?
