Installing Wood stove in currently existing wood burning fireplace

[kennny]

Hello.
I have been getting lots of good information from the forums here and would like your opinions on the project I am thinking of.

I am moving to a relatively newer house soon and the place has a wood burning fireplace(not been in use for years according to the seller).. from my research, it looks to be a Zero-Clearance one but not sure.
From outside, tip of the chimney, I can see terracotta lining stick out few inches with metal cap.
I am attaching the picture of the fireplace from the living room.

What I want to do is installing a wood burning stove(stand alone not insert) in front of the fireplace opening and use SS liner to vent through the chimney. I am thinking of Morso 1410 as a stove for it.

For this thought, do you see any possible hazard or compliance issue? or is it just simple stupid idea?
Please advise everyone. Any though will be appreciated.

If you have further questions to clarify things, please ask.

Ken

 

[mellow]

If you see terracotta that is usually an indicator it is masonry. Look into rear vent woodstoves, you will have to build your hearth out more to support a free stander. What is the dims on the fireplace opening?

 

[kennny]

Thanks for the reply. The opening measures roughly 48*24(W*H).
The depth of the hearth is 22'. From Morso website, 1410's depth is 14.5 in. and it does has rear-venting option.
Do I still need to keep the rear clearance even if the rear is not combustible?

 

[mellow]

You will not be happy with having to feed that small stove every hour. Can't find the rear vent specs on the website but you need to make sure it will be under the 24" height of the fireplace opening if you are rear venting into a tee in the fireplace. Either that or lower your hearth height.

 

[kennny]

Yes, I am expecting more splitting/cutting woods due to the smaller firebox.. which I don't really mind. I am more worried about the height. It looks like the european version of 1410 does come with different length of legs you can choose from but not in US market. I wonder if I could just buy the legs from UK or somewhere and replace it myself. This height issue and the depth of hearth is most concerning part for me.

 

[Grisu]

What is the purpose of this stove? The Morso 1410 has a rather tiny firebox and will be more for ambiance than really throwing a lot of heat. You may get that room warm but probably not much more.

For a rear-vent stove it would be good to know the exact height. Woodstock stoves have a rear clearance of 26" lintel height. This is about the lowest I know for medium to large sized stoves.

I would get a sweep in to clean the chimney. Even when the fireplace has not been used in years it will be required in any case. Then you can ask him what kind of fireplace you have. Maybe an insert would be an option if you really want a heater.

 

[mellow]

How many sq feet are you looking to heat? You also might look into a side loader like the Woodstocks and Jotuls, both have rear vent models.

 

[kennny]

The house is two story and does have gas furnace as well, the first floor is roughly 1000sqf. I don't expect the stove to work for entire house but I want it to work for the family room and kitchen next to it(roughly 500sqf). so the purpose of the stove is for both ambiance and saving utility bill.

 

[RickBlaine]

Ken,

I am new here but wanted to say:

1) That is a very nice looking fireplace.
2) That is a very wiiiidddddeeee fireplace vs. the height.
3) You will have many more options if you just lowered your hearth a little bit. For a small investment in lowering the hearth six inches, you can save hundreds of dollars and have dozens of stove choices available to you. 24 inches of height is very, very small. There may be only a few stoves that will fit and they may not provide much heat. I know you want "the look", but you may want to modify those very wide proportions by creating height space.

Are you handy? A cold chisel and a few hours of labor can knock out some of that hearth height....just saying....

There are several threads here of members modifying their brick hearths to fit a wood burning stove inside. Several before/after pics.

 

[kennny]

/RickBlaine, point well taken and I may go that route(lowering the height). But for the heat output the stove I was looking rated at 1000sqf and afraid stoves larger than that may make you uncomfortable in the family room. I once read an article here saying its safer to run small stove at full blast than to run a smaller(controlled) fire in larger stove due to creosote build-up. Which I agree. Thanks for your kind compliment/advise though.

 

[Grisu]

How much you will save on your utility bill will largely depend on how often you can feed that little stove. You will probably have to add wood every one to two hours to keep the heat coming. I would expect that to become tiring pretty quickly and overnight burns are out of the question. You may also run the risk of overfiring it because you would like to get more heat out of it. In total you have 2000 sqft to heat and unless your family room/kitchen are really badly connected to the rest of the house I would not worry too much about heating yourself out of the room. If you post a floorplan we could give you some tips on how to distribute the heat properly.

I once read an article here saying its safer to run small stove at full blast than to run a smaller(controlled) fire in larger stove due to creosote build-up.

If you are concerned of creosote make sure your wood is dry. That will go a long way to avoid chimney fires. And you can always run a smaller, hotter fire in a larger firebox but not vice versa. It's usually better to slightly oversize the stove than to buy a too small one and being disappointed. Are you set on a hearth-mounted stove or would you consider an insert? You could maybe make the opening a bit narrower with one or two columns of bricks so an insert would not look out of place in there.

 

[kennny]

/Grisu, appreciate the advice. I think the floor plan of the house is pretty straight forward but there is a wall between family room and living room and stairs to upstair is located in the living room. The 2nd floor sits on top of the living/dining area only.
I tried to draw the floorplan for your reference.
Do you think 1000sqf rated stove is way too small for it?

 

[bholler]

I would like to add that lowering a heart is no small job usually it can absolutely be done but it takes quite a bit of work an time. You also need t be decent at laying brick to make it hold up and look good. If you plan on it be prepared that under that first layer of brick is almost always a concrete slab that will need broken up and then repoured at the new height.

 

[Grisu]

/Grisu, appreciate the advice. I think the floor plan of the house is pretty straight forward but there is a wall between family room and living room and stairs to upstair is located in the living room. The 2nd floor sits on top of the living/dining area only.
I tried to draw the floorplan for your reference.
Do you think 1000sqf rated stove is way too small for it?

Don't go with the sqft rating when looking at stoves. There is no standard so the manufacturers can pretty much write whatever they want. Plus, it is usually a range from a well-insulated house in a temperate climate to a badly insulated home in a cold state. People often look only at the top of that range but don't consider their specific circumstances.

If you want to make a real dent in your utility bill the Morso will probably take a looong time to get your money back. First, that firebox is so small you will need to feed it pretty much all the time. Leave it unattended for 2 maybe 3 hours and it will stop heating. That means if only 8 hours per day someone is there (and awake) to put more wood in, the other 16 hours the gas furnace will run. I also doubt that this small stove will even be able to heat the lower floor. Thus, you may be looking at only supplementing about 1/3 of your total heating needs but still spend somewhere ~$2500 for stove, liner, and install. Not sure if the numbers will really add up for you. A stove with a firebox ~2 cu ft can be run pretty much the entire time and will certainly make a difference in your gas bill. In addition, we have way more complaints here about users that cannot heat their home than people complaining about too much heat.

Now, the good. Your floorplan does not look too bad. Without doorways the heat should be able to travel around the lower floor maybe assisted by some fans. For example, a small fan placed on the floor at the wall between the garage and the dining room and blowing cold air towards the kitchen should get the warm air around the corner. On the other hand, the upstairs may be tricky the way the stairwell is located.

You have an entire summer to decide on a stove or insert; take your time and a good look at your fireplace to see what would fit. However, get your wood ready! No matter which stove you buy they all need seasoned wood with a moisture content of less than 20%. Softwoods and ash could potentially dry over just one summer. Making single rows, small splits and top covering will help.

 

[begreen]

Welcome Kenny, what part of the state is this in? We have pretty wide range of heating needs depending on the locale. Based on the house description and openness of the floor plan I don't think you will overheat the place by going up to a larger stove, even if this is in the Seattle area. If you like the Morso line I would at least go up to the 2110. If works fine with a partial load of fuel. If the hearth is lowered a little and extended if necessary to meet the stove front hearth requirement I think you will get a lot more pleasure out of the larger stove.

Question: How tall is it from the chimney floor to the top of the chimney?

 

[kennny]

Grisu/begreen, thank you so much for your time/idea. Now you are making me considering bigger stoves. I am moving to Issaquah, WA next week. I was considering a small stove like Morso1410 because of milder winter here in WA (I moved from OH a year ago) and the look(it was my wife's favorite). Also thought it would require less/no additional work on hearth. If I have to work on lowering the heart anyway, I might as well making it large enough to accommodate larger stoves. Wish I could test smaller stoves first to see what happens before I start messing with the current structures. But all of your suggestions make sense to me. Thank alot

 

[begreen]

To give you some frame of reference, we are in the same area and heat with a 3 cu ft stove in a 2000 sq ft old farmhouse. You control the amount of heat coming from the stove. In mild 40 deg weather you might just build a fire with the stove partially loaded, then let it burn down without reloading. But when the temps get in the 30s or lower you will be burning larger, full load fires I suspect.

Another option to consider would be installing a mid-sized insert. That would be a lot less work than rebuilding the hearth. There are reasonably priced units in the $1000-2000 range.

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...gId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1
http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...gId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1
(broken link removed to http://www.chimneysweeponline.com/pacvisin.htm)

 

[Owen1508]

Or this one....

http://www.lowes.com/pd_97363-850-2...arch=us stove insert&productId=3457288&rpp=32

Or This one
http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...gId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1

 

[kennny]

With considering all the additional works, I agree the logical choice here would be an insert... but still couldn't give up the images I was thinking when I bought the house. I need your help to forget about the stand alone stove. If I get an insert with good size, would that make significant difference on my gas bill compared to smaller stoves like 1410?
The ones with blower, does it require plugged in?

 

[Grisu]

With considering all the additional works, I agree the logical choice here would be an insert... but still couldn't give up the images I was thinking when I bought the house. I need your help to forget about the stand alone stove. If I get an insert with good size, would that make significant difference on my gas bill compared to smaller stoves like 1410?

How much heat you will get depends mostly on the size of the firebox since with a bigger firebox you can burn more wood. Your heating efficiency may be somewhat lower with an insert than with a stove as the fireplace is at an exterior wall and some heat may go out the back wall. That will easily be compensated by the much larger unit you should be able to fit in the fireplace in contrast to putting it on the hearth. The question is what kind of fireplace and chimney you have and the dimensions of it. Additional pictures would help.

The ones with blower, does it require plugged in?

Yes.

 

[mellow]

I heat 1200 sq feet with my insert, others heat even larger amounts. The fan will be needed.

 

[Owen1508]

Hey Kenny,
A lot of good points are being talked about. Bottomline (my 2 cents) spend the time to look at every option and possiblity to determine what stove will suit you best. Now's the time to figure out all the options/costs/looks etc. These guys are good they will help you cover all the angles and see it from every POV. BTW welcome

 

[begreen]

A blower on the insert is desirable, but doesn't need to run all the time, especially if the insert is on an interior wall. The other factor will be how much the insert projects out onto the hearth. Flush inserts almost always need the blower running, at least on low speed. An insert that projects say 6-9" out onto the hearth will heat without the blower. Maybe not as well as with the blower running, but enough to be satisfactory. This is an important consideration if the area gets frequent power outages.

Both ways (freestanding and insert) will heat the place. I just wanted to present you with an alternative option.

 

[kennny]

I have done some homework and leaning toward installing an insert and found a used Country C160 insert selling locally. Any thought on that one? do you think it is still too small for the house? Grisu, I don't have exact measurement but the chimney looks to be about 10ft high. I will try to get you the more details later. Still busy with moving other household stuffs and wife gives me mean look when I stay around the fireplace too long.

 

[begreen]

The Country Striker is a nice small insert. It certainly would work as an area heater. The firebox is a bit small so getting an overnight burn with softwood will be a bit of a challenge, but not impossible if you can get hold of some seasoned madrone or apple wood. It's twice the size of the Morso IIRC. If it's in good condition, not abused and the price is right that could be a fine starter insert.