Cath I need some background info

[elkimmeg]

First of all a picture of you home and the chimney height of the chimney (a gusee is good enough) a picture of your fire place opening and the dementions of the opening

I need to know the interior dementions of your clay flues and the age of the home..

Lets start over and humor me if you have already answered these questions I remember the home being about 1500 sq ft
what size is the room where a stove is going and how does it open up to other rooms or stair cases?

I'm starting this new thread because it is hard to figure where you are going, jumping all over the board with stove suggestions off Craig's list.
then list your prefered prefferences first. I need a road map as to what direction you will turn next

 

[Cath]

Elk,
Here are the fireplace dimensions (excluding the flue measurement, which I don’t have).
Depth........18"
Width.........36” (front) & 24” (back)
Height........26”

The house was built in 1947. It is poorly insulated but we did recently put in Harvey insulated replacement windows. The overall square footage is more like 1348 sf. (not 1500 sf). The square footage of the main part of the first floor is 30 x 24 = 720 sf. Since it is a basic cape the foot print of the second floor is the same but given the pitch of the roof I think the upstairs is considered to have roughly 3/4 the living space of the downstairs, about 540 sf. There is a 8 x 11 (88 sf) breezeway with no living space above it. 720 sf + 540 sf + 88 sf = 1348.

The living room, on the left, is roughly 24 x 11.5 (276 sf), so it is a decent size but narrow. The front door opens up to the staircase, which leads to the second floor. The layout is closed but circular: with the kitchen in back and the dining room on the right side. The fireplace is on the left outside wall of the living room; it is centered on the wall but it is a little closer to the kitchen door in back than the door to the first floor/front stairs. The staircase on the first floor is almost fully enclosed. However, the stairway wall on the dining room side doesn't start until the second or third stair. So, theoretically we could use a couple of fans to push the heated air from an insert into the kitchen and to push the cold air from the front door/stairway into the living room ... and get a circular air flow going. If so, then a little bit of the hot air flowing from the living room to the kitchen, to the dining room might make it around the corner and up the stairs where the wall is shorter on the dining room side.

I believe the ceilings are standard height, 8 ft, so the chimney would be at least 16 feet plus the two feet of framing between the floors and a few feet or so above the roof, which would make the chimney about 20 to 22 sf.

I don't have the capability to take pictures and upload them since my computer is about 8 years old.

Also I spoke with the owner of the VC insert again. He will email me a few pictures tomorrow. He says there is no whitening to the outside top of the insert and no warping to the grill or bottom grate. I discussed the Cat with him again and he's going to ask why his Father In Law recommended removing it. He is replacing this with an older free standing --possibly pre EPA-- non Cat stove. His state doesn't require compliance with EPA standards and my sense is that the whole idea of a Cat just seemed to complicated to them. He didn't seem to have any idea that with the Cat it could burn more efficiently with proper use.

DH is wondering if I shouldn't have asked the Seller about the whitening since it might give him a chance to wire brush the brick interior. But my impression is that the whitening would be to the exterior (evidence of metal fatigue?). Is there a cosmetic fix for that?

Regarding what type of stove we want. For now at least it looks like DH is receptive to my preference for an insert. I think we've sort of agreed to disagree --for now at least-- on what would be a more efficient placement in terms of supplementing our heating bill. I think he's going along because ultimately it would take up less living space. That could change if the VC insert in our price range doesn't pan out.
Thanks,
~Cath