Hello,
I am new here and my question may sound off the wall, but I hear you guys are the experts
I have an RSF Opel 2 Fireplace that we got 4 yrs ago. It works great and we haven't used the furnace once since we've had it. We have a Cape Cod home (1.5 stories) w/ an open floor plan on the first floor. We live in Syracuse, NY so things get pretty darn cold at times, but the fireplace keeps us cozy. We have two gravity vents off the RSF, one that goes out the back toward the stairwell and one that goes directly upstairs. These gravity vents keep the upstairs heated very well and the built in fan does a great job for the downstairs.
The problem we have is that we lose a ton of heat through our attic. We have had our insulation redone in the crawl spaces/attic/and dormer areas of our house so those things are sealed up as best they can be. I think the issue is the (excuse incorrect/elementary wording here) chase that all the pipes go up. For instance, we have the fireplace which is just a black box - connected to that are the chimney, and the two gravity vents, I don't believe there is anything from the top of the box all the way up to the attic. The people that installed the fireplace framed around it w/in the standard clearances and then put up sheet rock. So all the excess heat that is generated from the firebox itself and the accompanying pipes (vents/chimney) is just wasted and goes up to our roof, melts the snow, creates giant icicles and pulls down our gutters (two years in a row!).
What I'd like to do is trap that heat so we can use it in the house. I'd like to put up some sort of soapstone (or other high thermal mass material) to trap the heat and radiate back to the house. I have no idea if this would work since my fireplace is not a "masonry heater" but I don't see how it couldn't help.
Does anyone have any insight? I'd like to encase the pipes in the soapstone and carry it up to the second floor at which point we would cap it off and just have the chimney go up and out. I believe our chimney is a really good insulated kind - can I change it to be poorly insulated while it's inside the soapstone and just the good insulated kind once it's out of the second floor, in hopes that more excess heat will be trapped and put back into the house? The other idea is some sort of fan that pushes any hot air back down into the house but I have no idea how that would be implemented. Or maybe a combo of both ideas.
I just rankles me that we spend so much time/energy heating our house and we're losing so much of it! Any suggestions are appreciated. If this makes no sense let me know and I can try to reword to get my point across.
Thanks in advance - Kat
I am new here and my question may sound off the wall, but I hear you guys are the experts
I have an RSF Opel 2 Fireplace that we got 4 yrs ago. It works great and we haven't used the furnace once since we've had it. We have a Cape Cod home (1.5 stories) w/ an open floor plan on the first floor. We live in Syracuse, NY so things get pretty darn cold at times, but the fireplace keeps us cozy. We have two gravity vents off the RSF, one that goes out the back toward the stairwell and one that goes directly upstairs. These gravity vents keep the upstairs heated very well and the built in fan does a great job for the downstairs.
The problem we have is that we lose a ton of heat through our attic. We have had our insulation redone in the crawl spaces/attic/and dormer areas of our house so those things are sealed up as best they can be. I think the issue is the (excuse incorrect/elementary wording here) chase that all the pipes go up. For instance, we have the fireplace which is just a black box - connected to that are the chimney, and the two gravity vents, I don't believe there is anything from the top of the box all the way up to the attic. The people that installed the fireplace framed around it w/in the standard clearances and then put up sheet rock. So all the excess heat that is generated from the firebox itself and the accompanying pipes (vents/chimney) is just wasted and goes up to our roof, melts the snow, creates giant icicles and pulls down our gutters (two years in a row!).
What I'd like to do is trap that heat so we can use it in the house. I'd like to put up some sort of soapstone (or other high thermal mass material) to trap the heat and radiate back to the house. I have no idea if this would work since my fireplace is not a "masonry heater" but I don't see how it couldn't help.
Does anyone have any insight? I'd like to encase the pipes in the soapstone and carry it up to the second floor at which point we would cap it off and just have the chimney go up and out. I believe our chimney is a really good insulated kind - can I change it to be poorly insulated while it's inside the soapstone and just the good insulated kind once it's out of the second floor, in hopes that more excess heat will be trapped and put back into the house? The other idea is some sort of fan that pushes any hot air back down into the house but I have no idea how that would be implemented. Or maybe a combo of both ideas.
I just rankles me that we spend so much time/energy heating our house and we're losing so much of it! Any suggestions are appreciated. If this makes no sense let me know and I can try to reword to get my point across.
Thanks in advance - Kat
