Looking for opinions on stoves/inserts in my situation!!

[Naehrig11]

Hello! Ive been doing some research on this site lately and am very pleased to see if you guys can help...

I live in CT, it gets pretty cold here during the winter. I just bought a house, its around 1800 square feet including the part of the basement that is finished. I have a large field stone fireplace upstairs and a smaller one downstairs in the finished part of the basement. They are on an outside wall, it is a ranch house with an open concept and the stair way to the basement is opposite the house where the fire places are. The one upstairs i want to keep a fireplace and maybe switch over to a gas fireplace in the future... the one downstairs i am aiming to put in a free standing stove if possible or an insert. I have oil heat which gets expensive and am looking for the most effeciant way to supplement the oil. I work for a tree service and can get as much wood as i need each year.

Heres where i need advice... the fireplace downstairs is pretty small. I dont have the depth dimension as of now because the previous owner blocked it off with foam board and i havnt opened it yet ( but supposedly it is in fine working condition..$ the width is 26 inches by 28 inches high. My hearth comes out only 17 inches. The reason i do not want to do a hearth extension is because there is a basement system drain installed throughout the entire perimiter of the basement and it goes right up against the hearth now, so i dont want to have to deal with jack hammering the floor and moving the drain. The floor in the basement where the fireplace is will be electric radiant floor heated tile, and the walls are decently insulated and framed about a foot away from the foundation

Let me know your thoughts on what you think i should do, i really appreciate it. Sorry for the long post but figured id answer as many questions as i could that ive seen come up in other posts

 

[begreen]

Besides the small size the clearances to the side wall will be important to watch. If necessary a hearth extension board could be placed on the floor in front of the current hearth without affecting the drain. The Hampton H300 with short legs would work with the hearth extension board, but it has a right-side door that requires 18" clearance.

 

[Naehrig11]

Besides the small size the clearances to the side wall will be important to watch. If necessary a hearth extension board could be placed on the floor in front of the current hearth without affecting the drain. The Hampton H300 with short legs would work with the hearth extension board, but it has a right-side door that requires 18" clearance.

Thanks! Ill look into that

 

[jatoxico]

Why do you think the owner boarded it up? I have a guess that the fireplace was down drafting. This is not uncommon for basement chimneys. You may want to read up on the cause and other contributors to down draft so you can take steps to minimize the issue.

 

[Naehrig11]

Not sure if there is basement drafting or not, will find out once i open it up this spring!

 

[jetsam]

Why do you think the owner boarded it up? I have a guess that the fireplace was down drafting. This is not uncommon for basement chimneys. You may want to read up on the cause and other contributors to down draft so you can take steps to minimize the issue.

Good catch. That is the "fireblock" flavor of Great Stuff around the edges. (According to their tech department, it has exactly the same service temperature as Great Stuff, but it has been through some kind of UL classification process that doubles the price. What does this mean to you? Never use this product around a heat source; it ignites at 240°F. Also don't pay double for the orange can unless you need a UL listed product to meet code.)