I've been lurking on the board for the past couple of months and just recently had a Hearthstone Clydesdale insert installed into my existing fireplace. The first floor, where the insert is installed, is fairly open, and the chimney is inside the house - dining room on one side and the kitchen/family room on the other. I've always cut wood from my property for the fireplace, but I started cutting more this spring than usual in anticipation of installing the insert. Here are my questions:
1) For those of you with a blower, how do you hide the cord (if you do)? I was thinking of installing a conduit and mortaring over it so that it would blend in somewhat with the slate hearth/rock surround. Any other suggestions?
2) My fireplace is double-sided. When I bought the house, I installed glass fireplace doors on one side to elminate the cross-drafts that would occasionally result in smoke wafting into the living areas instead of up the chimney. That worked surprisingly well, and the doors are still on the dining room side of the fireplace (where the insert isn't). I guess the good part of this setup is that heat from the back of the insert will also radiate into the house. The downside, and this is somewhat minor, is that if a light is on in the dining room, you can see that light coming through the gap between the insert and the surround in the other room. I was thinking I could get a metal plate to fit the behind the insert to block the light. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering if anyone else had dealt with the two-sided fireplace issue.
Thank you to all - your posts here have already been very helpful to me as I move from burning wood for "ambiance" to buring wood for heat. I'm sure these are the first of many questions to follow...
1) For those of you with a blower, how do you hide the cord (if you do)? I was thinking of installing a conduit and mortaring over it so that it would blend in somewhat with the slate hearth/rock surround. Any other suggestions?
2) My fireplace is double-sided. When I bought the house, I installed glass fireplace doors on one side to elminate the cross-drafts that would occasionally result in smoke wafting into the living areas instead of up the chimney. That worked surprisingly well, and the doors are still on the dining room side of the fireplace (where the insert isn't). I guess the good part of this setup is that heat from the back of the insert will also radiate into the house. The downside, and this is somewhat minor, is that if a light is on in the dining room, you can see that light coming through the gap between the insert and the surround in the other room. I was thinking I could get a metal plate to fit the behind the insert to block the light. It's not a big deal, but I was wondering if anyone else had dealt with the two-sided fireplace issue.
Thank you to all - your posts here have already been very helpful to me as I move from burning wood for "ambiance" to buring wood for heat. I'm sure these are the first of many questions to follow...
