First I'd like to say thank you for having this site, what a enormous wealth of information. I've tried my best to understand everything, but just wanted to repeat what I think I've learned to make sure I have it straight and get some clarification
Situation: Bought a house in northern DE 5ish years ago that had a fireplace and a chimney that had been removed below the roof line. We are finally refinishing the basement room that housed the fireplace and am trying to determine how best on a budget (3.5-4K) to make it useful. Trying to make the room a family room and not trying to heat the house with the fireplace rather use it to make the room comfortable and save what I can on natural gas by burning wood on the side (plenty of people around here having trees cut down and giving away wood). I haven't burned wood before, but not a stranger to splitting it.
Anyhow I was thinking a liner w/cement/vermiculite in what is left of the chimney and then a class A above the roof line, but the chimney comes out a lower roof line (garage) and there is going to about about 12' of exposed Class A that will show from the front of the house. I wouldn't mind, but someday we'll likely try to sell so we'll pay a bit more to have it masonry instead. One question I have is whether there is an insulation difference between the double wall class A and a masonry w/vermiculite?
To make the budget work and given I don't want to heat the house I plan on getting an Englander 17 or an Drolet pyropak. Does that seem reasonable? My concern with that is given its a two story colonial house and the fireplace is in the basement its going to be about 25' worth of chimney. Does having a small fire and the bottom of such a tall chimney an issue? That might be a dumb question but I'm concerned about the heat from a small stove not being enough to keep the gases hot enough to the top.
Situation: Bought a house in northern DE 5ish years ago that had a fireplace and a chimney that had been removed below the roof line. We are finally refinishing the basement room that housed the fireplace and am trying to determine how best on a budget (3.5-4K) to make it useful. Trying to make the room a family room and not trying to heat the house with the fireplace rather use it to make the room comfortable and save what I can on natural gas by burning wood on the side (plenty of people around here having trees cut down and giving away wood). I haven't burned wood before, but not a stranger to splitting it.
Anyhow I was thinking a liner w/cement/vermiculite in what is left of the chimney and then a class A above the roof line, but the chimney comes out a lower roof line (garage) and there is going to about about 12' of exposed Class A that will show from the front of the house. I wouldn't mind, but someday we'll likely try to sell so we'll pay a bit more to have it masonry instead. One question I have is whether there is an insulation difference between the double wall class A and a masonry w/vermiculite?
To make the budget work and given I don't want to heat the house I plan on getting an Englander 17 or an Drolet pyropak. Does that seem reasonable? My concern with that is given its a two story colonial house and the fireplace is in the basement its going to be about 25' worth of chimney. Does having a small fire and the bottom of such a tall chimney an issue? That might be a dumb question but I'm concerned about the heat from a small stove not being enough to keep the gases hot enough to the top.