In home fireplace/wood stove question for everyone....

[mtj53]

I have been wondering about this for awhile and the time seems right to ask.
I am wondering when wood stoves, inserts and fireplaces and add on furnaces really took off, became as popular as they are now?
Here is why I ask--and I'm just curious as to how long I have been "missing the boat" so to speak.

Near 20 years ago I built my home, and I built it fairly open and put in a top of the line fireplace with the expectations that it would help the heating bill & keep the house more comfortable. Didn't work out that way, quite the opposite actually. After a year I covered my fireplace up with insulation and never got any use out of it because of draft issues. I had a woodstove in my garage that was here before the house was. That worked fantastic! 30 minutes after it was started it had a 960 sq ft garage warm as can be. About 10 years after I built the house, on a routine insurance audit, my insurance agent who knew about my woodstove all along told me to get the woodstove out of the garage or her insurance company would drop me right away. I removed it immediately. Now that I look back, they probably just didn't want the stove in the garage where I kept my cars. I found hearth.com earlier this year and it has really opened my eye's. Being naive I just didn't realize this many folks burned wood for heat. Had I not kept so busy all these years I probably would have figured this all out earlier. That's what leads me to wonder for how long have I been missing out? How long have companies been building inserts etc that truly help heat a house? My insurance company also would allow an inside fireplace, but they frowned on an indoor woodstove as I recall. Are their insurance companies that have always allowed them or has that also changed in recent years?

Ironically enough, I live on a two acre lot and it was totally packed with timber, mostly soft woods, cottonwood etc, nonetheless, each and every year I've cut down several large tree's and I stack the wood for a couple years and when dry I'd give it to someone that can use it. Love cutting wood & the lot needed to be cleared anyway. Last year I cut down what I considered to be the last "scrub tree". That's when I found all you guys. Wouldn't you know it, I'm all out of wood and now I need it

My sincere thanks to the owner(s) of Hearth.com, as well as the moderators, and to everyone who has been kind enough to answer my posts, offer advice, and share their time and experiences with me. I'll be installing a new woodburning fireplace over the summer and I'll look forward to learning more and sharing my experiences next year as I use it more. Thanks!

 

['bert]

Bump, kind of an interesting question. Perhaps a little broad, when did EPA stoves start to show up? Is that when wood burning took a turn to a more viable heating source? I sort of stumbled into a EPA wood burner will no knowledge, just dumb ass luck for the most part. My dealer did not explain any of the options / differences to me.

 

[mtj53]

I guess it is a pretty broad question....sorry about that. I remember going in 20 years ago and since I honestly thought I was going to get some heat out of the fireplace, I simply asked the dealer what the best was that he had for sale. He said the Majestic 42 was top of the line fireplace and would provide me with all the heat of any fireplace available. Of course it wasn't a sealed unit or anything, guess I'm just wondering when were fireplaces actually built to be a viable heating source like you mentioned? Take inserts for example, I'd never heard of them until a few months ago. Now after seriously looking for a few months, I've seen inserts and sealed unit zero clearance fireplaces that are rated at upwards of 70,000 btu's and capable of heating an entire home. Was all this available 20 years ago and I missed it? I realize that freestanding woodstoves have been around forever, just curious when companies truly started marketing fireplaces & inserts more as heating appliances as opposed to just for the aesthetics.

 

[pip3398]

Fireplace's not so much back then. Last 12-15 years is more like it. When I got into this business in the early 90's all that I could find in fireplace's was builder boxes. HeatnGlo made some that were about 30-40% efficient in the mid to late 90's but fireplaces like the FPX did not come out till around 97-98. Lots of good inserts for 20+ years though.

 

[Todd]

I think it really took off back in the 1970's during the big energy crunch. Many stove manufactures sprung up quickly but they also built inefficient smoke dragons which led to the EPA jumping in around the late 1980's to regulate the stove emissions which greatly improved efficiencies, but also put many manufactures out of business.

 

[begreen]

That's a fair assessment and what motivated us to buy our Resolute in 1979. It was a huge expense for us back then, but we were pleased as punch to have it. For our local stove shop, sales were brisk, there was a waiting list. The stove made a huge dent in the oil bill and we were warm. Never regretted that decision, but we ere sad to part with the stove when we moved.

 

[mn_jon]

We were actually required to have a second heat source by the power company, since we were going to use an offpeak heat storage unit. Being nowhere near a gas line, not wanting expensive (imported) fuel oil, or a big LP tank in my yard - I decided to have a epa zero clearance fireplace in the house. Plus we had a fireplace growing up and I just sort of liked watching the fire at night during the winters in Ohio. Well after moving to northern Minnesota and having an abundance of wood everywhere it just seemed like the logical choice. So now we have the fireplace and could actually survive a few days without power if it ever happened. This was the first winter for the fireplace and we love it, in fact next year it will be our primary heat source and the slab heat can be the backup.


Jon

 

['bert]

So if the EPA rating came in almost 30 years ago now, have they been updated in any way since? It would seem to me that over the last 30 some years additional efficiency improvements should have been made.

 

[pip3398]

EPA still does not regulate fireplaces. Only stoves and inserts. Most fireplaces don't produce a ton of emissions because they have a lot of air flow. They just have very low efficiency or negative efficiency as they draw more heat out than they put in.
You can also buy EPA exempt stoves that are fixed in their air to fuel ratio. Since they have a fixed ratio and can not be shut down they are allowed to forgo EPA testing. They just don't burn very long and are not very efficient but they burn clean enough to make EPA happy.
Fireplaces are exempt but the manufacturer can have them tested and certified. There are only about 1/2 a dozen manufacturers or so that do this.