New home: Fireplace or wood stove?

I am an expert, because I built the fireplace pictured at left. This is an all masonry fireplace on the Rumford model and is the best heating fireplace I have ever used.
If you want a fireplace you must do one like mine that is entirely within the house, because the back wall of the fireplace puts off a lot of heat. And, going the other way, on an exterior fireplace, on a cold day when you are not running the fireplace, that 20 degree temp is running right through the masonry and into your living room.
Also you have to have an exterior air intake of at least 90 square inches.

This bad boy is in a room that is 16 x 20 with 8 foot ceilings and will heat it easily. Burn for 5 hours, let the coals go out, shut damper, and it will heat 1100 sq ft for 24 hours on a 32 degree night. Pretty good for a fireplace.

But I have had 7 wood stoves, over the years, and now have a shiny new Jotul Oslo. I built an addition onto the house two years ago to make room for the Oslo, so the wood stove is in the other living room, I have 2 living rooms. The wood stove makes as much heat as my badass fireplace, and uses 1/5 as much wood.

Still, you can't beat the ambiance of a good ol' American stone fireplace.

Hmmm, interesting, 2 couples, I like the concept and now I get the 3500 sqft., kinda sounds like sharing one house but you get the common areas and also the serenity of your own space, maybe you're on to something.

We are going with both, old picture but had the wood stove working last winter and its nice. We have gas logs in the fire place a lot more convenient then wood especially when you can just turn it off. Still not comfortable with a gas fire place burning all the time and never when we go to sleep. But a wood stove I can pack with wood and let it burn all night or when we leave the house. Medical conditions with my wife have prevented me from getting up to the cabin to complete and stone the hearth extension and wall behind it. For aesthetics and heat retention, it is already far enough away for any combustible materials. Vaulted ceilings run the entire length of the house, shocked at how well it can heat the far side of the house.

I live across the Delaware river and also have a ranch. I would say wood stove, i have a large viewing area and love to sit back and look at it.. i heat only with wood and it dose a great job. My floor plan is an open floor so the heat moves around well, but when its in the teens i use an air circulation system to pull the warm air out of the stove room and blow it into the farthest rooms to keep them warm. I dont need to use it much, just here and there. Its good to have if needed. Im getting burn times of 12 hours on a regular basis. Thats somthing to consider, i dont know of any fire places that burn like that

Simonkenton said:

I am an expert, because I built the fireplace pictured at left. This is an all masonry fireplace on the Rumford model and is the best heating fireplace I have ever used.
If you want a fireplace you must do one like mine that is entirely within the house, because the back wall of the fireplace puts off a lot of heat. And, going the other way, on an exterior fireplace, on a cold day when you are not running the fireplace, that 20 degree temp is running right through the masonry and into your living room.
Also you have to have an exterior air intake of at least 90 square inches.

This bad boy is in a room that is 16 x 20 with 8 foot ceilings and will heat it easily. Burn for 5 hours, let the coals go out, shut damper, and it will heat 1100 sq ft for 24 hours on a 32 degree night. Pretty good for a fireplace.

But I have had 7 wood stoves, over the years, and now have a shiny new Jotul Oslo. I built an addition onto the house two years ago to make room for the Oslo, so the wood stove is in the other living room, I have 2 living rooms. The wood stove makes as much heat as my badass fireplace, and uses 1/5 as much wood.

Still, you can't beat the ambiance of a good ol' American stone fireplace.

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It’s nice to see another rumford out there.
I just built a 60” rumford from the Rumford.com website in my new house. We haven’t lit it yet because the house is not done. We are super excited though!!

I have a couple questions for you if you don’t mind me asking.

1. How big is yours and could it heat your house in an emergency power outage?
2. How much wood do you feed it per hour or day?
3. Does It smoke into the room at all and can you shut the damper down a little while it’s running to conserve hot air?

Thanks in advance!
Drew

My fireplace is 42 inches wide and 36 inches high.
I have never evaluated how much wood it takes, but it is a lot more than a wood stove.
No, it does not smoke at all. I built this fireplace out of two books I had, and these books went in to detail about, first, the 1 to 10 rule about the size of the fireplace opening and the flue size, also proper construction of the smoke chamber, the expansion chamber, and then, the smoke shelf, and then, the size of the throat.

So this fireplace properly designed and it never smokes. And I am up on top of a mountain and often burn this thing when the wind is blowing 45 mph outside and still it never smokes.

I have a slider damper right at the top of the throat and, yes, I always shut it down as the fire gets lower.
Low fire, shut the damper half way, and go to the front and see and smell if any smoke is coming out. Saves a lot of air.
Of course, your goal is to let the fire go completely out, and then shut the damper, and hold all the heat within the house.

Of course I have an outside air intake without that you will not get to first base, you will go back to the dugout hanging your head and the coach will robustly criticize you.

Also I hope your fireplace is entirely inside the house because a lot of hot air comes out the back wall. See, I wanted a Finnish fireplace but the girlfriend did not like the way they look.
Women, go figure.
So I built the Rumford instead and designed a blend of the Finnish fireplace and the Rumford, in that, of course all Finnish fireplaces are entirely within the house.

My house was 1100 square feet when the fireplace was built and yes, it will heat the entire house on a 30 degree windy night.
Burn the fireplace for 5 hours and then it will heat the house until the next afternoon at 5pm, time to light another fire.

Also, you can crank the think up with locust, oak, whatever you want. But about 2 hours before closing time, just use pine.
You don't want long lasting coals you want the coals to go out Mach Schnell.

Did you lay the bricks yourself or did you hire it out?

Here it is in the rough. It will be finished with plaster to look like concrete.
Its 60”wide and I hope the mass of the block and all the concrete poured inside it will keep the heat going for awhile.
It’s on an outside wall but has a 2” open air gap between it and the Sheetrock that I’m hoping will let the heat float away into the room and not make its way outside.
This monster has a 20” flue that’s 24’ tall. I’m hoping it throws more heat than it sucks up the flue!

Sixty inches wide and how high? What are the dimensions of the flue?

My God, what a whopper! That Bad Boy will throw some heat.

Well, a 2 inch air gap between the back wall and the sheet rock ought to be enough to let the air circulate behind there. My back wall only gets up to about 105 degrees so the stud wall/sheet rock should be able to handle that with no problems.

Simonkenton said:

Sixty inches wide and how high? What are the dimensions of the flue?

My God, what a whopper! That Bad Boy will throw some heat.

Well, a 2 inch air gap between the back wall and the sheet rock ought to be enough to let the air circulate behind there. My back wall only gets up to about 105 degrees so the stud wall/sheet rock should be able to handle that with no problems.

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The firebox is 60” wide and 54” tall.
The flue is a 20” square per rumford specs.
It has a two position damper and I’m hoping to run it half open as much as possible.
I also have over 12” of solid masonry between the back if my firebox and back wall to soak up some energy. Around the firebox is at least 12” of concrete or solid block also for storage.
I’m hoping it will work good and not just be a novelty item.
I’m pretty sure it won’t smoke though with the extra large flue.

The flue is the proper size, if it has a proper expansion chamber it won't smoke. Good idea on the solid masonry between the back of the fireplace and the back wall.

In the design in my book, the fire box was independent from the back wall and there was a 5 inch air space between the fire box and the back wall. So the fire box was insulated. Having built the firebox and the back wall, I got some small pea gravel and filled the space in I wanted the fire box to not be insulated and to transmit the heat directly into the back wall.

I think your mason really knows what he is doing and this thing will be a great heater for you.

Yeah I have a home made damper got a welder to make it for me, 1/2 inch sheet steel, but it has about 58 positions, just depends on how much you slide it.
Do you have a chimney top damper? Still a damper with two positions will work well, I usually do just that, when the fire is down considerably I shut the damper half way.

La Crosse Wisconsin, huh? Well you need a good heater up there. My ancestors, the Lewis clan, lived in Wisconsin for 30 years, then found out in 1881 you could get free land in South Dakota so they moved west in that year. Custer and them had cleared up the pesky savages by then.

I think this is a well built fireplace that you have and it will be a great heater. I would have made a little more space between the back wall and the sheet rock but I think 2 inches will work fine, the sheet rock will hear up to, what, 100 degrees, and the cool air will rush in the bottom and the warm air will flow out the top.

Let me know how that Bad Boy works.

Oh by the way, we designed the living room with the sofa 9 foot from the fireplace, the Bas A** Rumford throws so much heat, had to move the sofa back to 11 feet.
You are gonna need your sofa at 14 feet. Seriously

Do you have an outside air intake?

Simonkenton said:

The flue is the proper size, if it has a proper expansion chamber it won't smoke. Good idea on the solid masonry between the back of the fireplace and the back wall.

In the design in my book, the fire box was independent from the back wall and there was a 5 inch air space between the fire box and the back wall. So the fire box was insulated. Having built the firebox and the back wall, I got some small pea gravel and filled the space in I wanted the fire box to not be insulated and to transmit the heat directly into the back wall.

I think your mason really knows what he is doing and this thing will be a great heater for you.

Yeah I have a home made damper got a welder to make it for me, 1/2 inch sheet steel, but it has about 58 positions, just depends on how much you slide it.
Do you have a chimney top damper? Still a damper with two positions will work well, I usually do just that, when the fire is down considerably I shut the damper half way.

La Crosse Wisconsin, huh? Well you need a good heater up there. My ancestors, the Lewis clan, lived in Wisconsin for 30 years, then found out in 1881 you could get free land in South Dakota so they moved west in that year. Custer and them had cleared up the pesky savages by then.

I think this is a well built fireplace that you have and it will be a great heater. I would have made a little more space between the back wall and the sheet rock but I think 2 inches will work fine, the sheet rock will hear up to, what, 100 degrees, and the cool air will rush in the bottom and the warm air will flow out the top.

Let me know how that Bad Boy works.

Oh by the way, we designed the living room with the sofa 9 foot from the fireplace, the Bas A** Rumford throws so much heat, had to move the sofa back to 11 feet.
You are gonna need your sofa at 14 feet. Seriously

Do you have an outside air intake?

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This unit was built by three people that have never built one before. Myself, the one that supplied all the plans and did the research and two experienced mason did most of the block work.
It has a large smoke chamber above the firebox.

Why does yours have such a big air gap around the firebox? I don’t have one at all. I filled it all in with block,mortar and concrete to add mass and heat transfer. I was told I might get a few cracks though if it’s heated up really hot.
As far as more space along the back that’s all I could get and still get it through the roof trusses.

I don’t have an outside air intake yet. I’ll probably have to put one in the house somewhere though. I might draw from my large attached shop to keep the cold air out(it’ll suck it in there though).

Does yours seem to take awhile to heat up the sheer mass of it or does that happen quickly?

Well, I am an experienced log carpenter but not much experience as a mason. I wanted to hire a local guy here to build this for me but there was nobody to be found. So, I got two books on the subject and went to work, after all, I was building the log cabin.

So in my book, the firebox was built first. The firebox goes straight up for 5 fire bricks, then, slopes inwards towards the room, so that the radiant heat will be deflected downwards.
So at the bottom a 2 inch gap between the firebox and the back wall, and then, at the top of the firebox a 7 inch gap. That was what the book said.
Then, I began building the outside wall, with concrete block, brick, and rock. And so I saw this big gap between the firebox and the back wall. A dead air space. But I wanted the heat to transfer straight into the back and side walls. I bought a bunch of bags, 40 pounds apiece, of small pebbles at Home Depot and filled in that space. Took about 20 bags.

Your giant fireplace must have an outside air intake. I started with a 5 x 5 inch outside air intake, just the hole in concrete block right in the rock in the hearth. Not nearly enough.
So I added another 6 x 14 inch outside air intake. That gets the job done.

Mine is 110 square inches and you need one of about 200 inches. Make a hole in the foundation somewhere, you can attach a plastic flex pipe like heat and air guys use, and make a hole in the floor near the fireplace, put a grate in there.

Without this, where you gonna get all the air to run this beast? Gonna open a few windows, and have 20 degree air flowing right past your sofa on the way to the firebox? No bueno.

Yes it does take a while to heat up the massive amount of masonry, the back wall takes 3 or 4 hours to pick up any heat.

This Beast that you have built will be a great heater for you but you gotta get that outside air intake.




My house.

I will need about 300 cfm of makeup air. I have several option as of right now.
This house is a work in progress so it’s not finished. I might just cut a vent hole in somewhere close to it and open that as needed.
Do you ever grill food in yours?
I can’t wait to cook on an open fire IN MY LIVING ROOM!!

Yes, I bought on ebay an antique English chestnut roaster, and every year we make "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Simonkenton said:

Yes, I bought on ebay an antique English chestnut roaster, and every year we make "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

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I did the same, and ever year we’d try to convince ourselves that we liked chestnuts. We eventually came to our senses, and realized they’re just not that good, and now we use the roaster for doing bags of mixed nuts (pecans, almonds, walnuts, Brazil, etc.).

I was Wondering if anybody has ever done this

It looks like fun lol

https://www.google.com/search?q=pig...8&hl=en-us&client=safari#imgrc=TJ5uQyHGpNymxM:

Chestnuts are not good? EMERGENCY! Stay calm brother we will get you help. The hearth.com Psychiatrist has been notified and your home address had been tracked down, he will arrive at your house within an hour to render aid. Remember, when he says to take 3 of the big green pills a day, you MUST take them. It will help.

I love chestnuts. I travelled all over Europe and on every other street corner there was a guy with a little push cart with a charcoal grill, selling fresh roasted chestnuts. Evidently the European chestnuts did not get obliterated like ours did.
I bought lots of them, they are great.

We buy chestnuts in the local grocery store I don't know where they are grown but they are good.
The NC mountains used to be in the middle of the vast, and fantastic American chestnut forest. I own 39 acres and it is something, to think of, 200 years ago, all the huge 95 foot chestnut trees that once grew on my property. Twenty five percent of the trees in the Appalachian area were chestnut.
The greatest ecological disaster since the end of the Ice Age, when the chestnut forests were destroyed, in 1910, 1930 etc.
Back in 1900 the chestnuts would lay on the ground 6 inches deep in the fall. Farmers would turn their pigs loose and they would eat on chestnuts for months. Chestnuts are high in protein and very good for you.
Local inhabitants would gather hundreds of pounds of chestnuts and eat them through the winter.
What a tragedy that these trees were lost to us.

My brother and I are returning the chestnut trees to their homeland up here, I have three trees that I planted and my brother has 25. Our trees are 6 years old and we are just beginning to get a few nuts.

bholler said:

That fireplace may heat ok if it is supplued with enough combustion air. But being that large you are going to burn through wood like mad. I would expect to burn a weeks worth of wood for a stove in that in a night. And the firebox should never be backfilled solid. Those firebrick are going to expand much faster than the surrounding masonry which could lead to cracking. The good thing is that it is huge and you will have plenty of room for whatever stove and liner you want when you get tired of cutting that much wood.

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I followed a plan by rumford that was drawn a little vague. Long story short the back side of the fire box is 12” of solid masonry grouted tight to the firebrick. The front sides have an expansion joint built in. Jim Buckley from rumford fireplaces said it probably will have a few cracks but won’t be a problem after it settles in. Is that what you think will happen?
This fireplace is mostly for fun and occasionally some heat.