warming the house

milo · Guru

warming the house

sucastja · Senior Member

We have a small two bedroomed house with open lounge / kitchen, and a bathroom. We have a smaller version of the fireplace you showed and we absolutely love it!!! It get's so warm in that house in winter I have to open the windows sometimes. It costs us nothing to run as we have 11 acres of bush block, with plenty of dead wood to burn. So for us it's very economical.

We also have a 3 bedroom house that we live in as well (during the week - the other one is a weekender and will be where we retire to). The 3 bedroom house just has a gas wall furnace. I would love to put a wood heater here also.

Happywanderer · The Master

Can't help you too much with that milo except to say check out the price of a load of firewood first. Can be quite expensive. Have you used the open fireplace or will it need any repairs or cleaning done to it.

neilnruth · Guru

Most loads ofd firewood are around $150 - and they don't last long!

stoney123 · Senior Member

you can add a vent in roof near fireplace and get DUCT to other end of house, in it you ut a fan in lounge add extra usck to get heat and fan at other end to blow it out, the whole house then gets warm, insulation helps. DUCT is cheap, fans are 12v, open fire is nfg, pot belly or equiv, esp new ones have a fan in them

milo · Guru

never used the fireplace, just been thinking about it..

Rip and Rosie · Guru

You should not use an old fireplace without first having it checked by someone who can identify if its going to burn your house down.

DeBe · Guru

Hi Milo, My experience is with a old solid stone house with thick walls & insulated ceiling, it basicly fairly stable temperature wise. It had an open fireplace when we moved in & used a lot of wood. We fitted a slow combustion heater in the fireplace, it uses a lot less wood. It holds its heat a lot longer than the open fireplace. With continouse use through winter the warmth slowly goes through other rooms. I also collect wood for free.

Sheba · Guru

I still think nothing warms a room quite like a Kero. heater.

Cheers,

Sheba.

gst · Senior Member

A good pot belly fire place will warm up the place put a safety fence around it high heat output low fuel we had one in our house in high lands granddad got from the USA we only got cold when went to round up the cows so they put a large one in the milking shed plus good to keep the peasoup hot

Wizardofoz · Guru

Milo, ensure that you get a fan forced slow combustion fire, they are much more efficient and the heat is controllable, you can slow burn a log overnight and it will still be hot embers in the morning when you get your adjustment right.

Have a look at heaters like these...

http://www.firefox.com.au/slow_combustion_woodheaters.html

http://www.agnews.com.au/Brochures/kl%20c24.pdf

Smokeydk · Guru

Go potbelly......it contains the smoke.........an open fire place will fill house with smoke.......I grew up on a farm......and the only cooking was done on a open fire

Pam · Guru

We used to use a slow combustion wood heater until powers that be turned our local forest into national park thus restricting wood permits to the point of it being impossible to get wood. Now we use our split system but the heat is not the same. It warms while it is turned on but you don't get the lovely residual heat of a wood heater.

gillyb · Senior Member

Hi Milo I have a similar problem to you my house is also quite cold in winter, I have an old cunara wood heater in the lounge and it keeps that room nice and warm sometimes too warm but I find the wood is very expensive as red gum seems to be the best type of wood for it. The house also has ducted heating using tank gas, when I first moved into the house it was so warm until I discovered it went through a tank of gas in less than a fortnight (cost of filling tank $400) so only use that now 1st thing in the morning. I have found my best option is my electric split system that I have in my kitchen/family room, even though electricity is now very expensive it's still working out cheaper than my other options.

I think the real answer is to move to a warmer climate biggrin (I'm in Melbourne)

milo · Guru

thanks all, ill get the chimney looked at , and i too gilly found the tanks around $100 each, but i cant afford to move some where else!