36wx24h, 24 deep. It's kind of big I guess, many/most inserts would fit it. It's got glass bifold doors and a blower with intake vents either side and a between-the-bricks vent into the room with a one hour dial-turn timer. I guess it wouldn't work if the power was off, so there's that to consider. It's got a spring-loaded cap at the top of the chimney controlled by a chain that hangs into the mouth of the fireplace.
I've only lit it twice, and both times I shut the glass doors and turned on the blower. It seemed to heat up the living room area pretty nicely, and with the ceiling fan distributing the heat it was pretty comfortable. An armload of wood kept the fireplace hot for 2-3 hours. There was nothing scientific about it but I think it heated up the space fairly well.
With the fireplace doors open, heat just blasted into the room. With the doors closed, the wood burned a long time (relatively speaking). Since it has a chain curtain, I could leave the glass doors open and run the curtain in front of the fire for safety, and blast heat into the room. From what I've read, the Texas fire grate that uses rounds would be very handy in focusing heat from the fireplace into the living room. Glass doors would not help the Texas fire grate, but would help the blower. I don't know what the better setup is.
Is the Texas fire grate an attractive visual thing? I doubt it's like a roaring hearth, which I think is just so cool to watch.
Thoughts, comments, scathing criticisms?
I've only lit it twice, and both times I shut the glass doors and turned on the blower. It seemed to heat up the living room area pretty nicely, and with the ceiling fan distributing the heat it was pretty comfortable. An armload of wood kept the fireplace hot for 2-3 hours. There was nothing scientific about it but I think it heated up the space fairly well.
With the fireplace doors open, heat just blasted into the room. With the doors closed, the wood burned a long time (relatively speaking). Since it has a chain curtain, I could leave the glass doors open and run the curtain in front of the fire for safety, and blast heat into the room. From what I've read, the Texas fire grate that uses rounds would be very handy in focusing heat from the fireplace into the living room. Glass doors would not help the Texas fire grate, but would help the blower. I don't know what the better setup is.
Is the Texas fire grate an attractive visual thing? I doubt it's like a roaring hearth, which I think is just so cool to watch.
Thoughts, comments, scathing criticisms?
but for the most part do suck, literally, for heat. i'm more of a function over form kind of guy so when I did have a fireplace, I either blocked it off and had a free standing stove on the hearth or had an insert with a portion of the stove (by design) sticking out into the hearth area and it had a block off plate integrated into it. growing up, we had a fireplace in the old farm house and I spent many an hour sitting on the hearth after coming in from sledding or doing chores.....I remember we would open the damper in the back of the fireplace, then close it until we got a little whiff of smoke, then open it back up a little until it was gone. I guess we were limiting some of the air flow going back out the flue. also it increased the burn time a little longer. we just had a screen, no glass at that time.
