Washington newbie. Looking for advice.

[ChainsawCharlie]

Hello all. Names Charlie. The wife and I just bought a house outside of Seattle, house has two fire places, one upstairs is a built in insert with blower, it works great. Will get the living room from 55 to 85 in under an hour. Hot!
But down stairs, some one (I believe the renters who were in the house prior to us buying) installed an insert, this insert is the kind that half sticks out from the chimney/fireplace (brick). This one is kind of a turd, I can get it burning nice and hot and it wi only get the room warmish. It realky seems tk just be a wood waster. A couple of things, one the insert has a shroud that closes off the mouth of the fire place, the shorud has a gap of about 1-2" a around, two the inside of the stove had what I'm going to call a diverter plate that was missing its bricks, I guess the idea is the plate/bricks move the flame/heat to the front over the stove before it exits out the flue. I've since replace the bricks of the diverter whichmade about a 2% differance. Lastly the stove has no flue pipe, just out of the box and uo the chimeny she goes. I'm wondering if a flue pipe/chimney liner would hel ppl thos keeo more heat in the house. Rather then sucking more air out of the room with the heat going up the chimney.

 

[My Oslo heats my home]

Welcome Charlie...bunches of questions coming for sure. Do both inserts on both floors share the same flue? I believe you said that you didn't see any SS liners working for either fireplace insert, right? Is the space downstairs a former living space? an apartment maybe? and the upstairs fireplace is in a second residence in the same home? Can you give some idea of what the floor plan looks like? Are there any other appliances using this chimney (ie: gas hot water, furnace etc)?

 

[Sprinter]

The best way to install an insert is with a stainless liner with some insulation around it, and with a block off plate to prevent ambient air from escaping. It sounds like you don't have any kind of plate like that. If not, a ton of heat will just go up the chimney along with the gasses and smoke.

 

[ChainsawCharlie]

So each insert has its own flue. I don't know if the upstairs one, the mantle is built around the insert so I've never dug into that system.

Downstairs is a day light basement, used as laundry room, furnace space, hiking/biking/skiing storage and beer making. 80% finished, 3large windows. Directly living room with the good insert, rest of the house is split level between the two. No other appliances share theflues, furnace has its own elsewhere, water heater is electric.

I'm guessing the SS liners is what needed. Like I said the one downstairs has the plates that close the hole off but not entirely, I was wondering if the air gets blocked at the stove or at the top of the chimney.