When Do you Turn On Your Heat?

[Smart Red]

I hope everyone remembers not to use 2 sources of flame heat in the same building at the same time. Backdraft kills.

Never heard that before. Do you think that would still apply if both fires used outside air, closed fire doors, and separate chimneys for venting? Being out in the country, all the other heat sources are electric except for the oil burner furnace and that doesn't come on when we're burning the fireplace.

Love, Smart Red

 

[digitS']

I had a larger gas water heater installed in the basement a few years ago. It has a blower-assisted flue since it runs quite a ways to an outside wall

The basement is a 3/4 affair and might even be considered a half basement since the addition only has a crawl space. Anyway, it is small and the water heater is down there with a gas furnace. The building inspector advised me to leave a vent open in a crawl space so that the 2 flames would have adequate air.

I used to have wood stoves in other houses - one, an insert I put into the existing fireplace. I tried to think of how to get outside air to the stoves in both of those homes and couldn't come up with anything that would be easy to do. I think it is an excellent idea altho' I am no engineer.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

I don't know the answer to that Linn Bee.

 

[journey11]

Our wood burning fireplace 'secret' is outside air to the burning chamber. None of the house's heated air goes to the fire. Over the firebox are a couple dozen metal tubes. With the fan running it will carry air from the floor through the heated tubes and into the room through vents in the wall.

Just one benefit of building your own house.

And we have another beautiful fireplace in OUR living room that's never been used in nearly 40 years. I'm not sure why DH wanted one then won't let me use it. . . could be the white in the carpet?

Love, Smart Red

That is smart design. I've heard of that before somewhere... You would be surprised how much oxygen a fireplace/wood furnace can suck out of your indoor air. My baby daughter was on oxygen when she came home from the hospital last March/April. The alarm on the oxygen concentrator machine they gave us kept going off and scaring me to death. It couldn't find enough oxygen in the room air to keep up with her flow settings. Opening up a few windows was the only way to fix it.

For that reason also, if you burn wood, you should not do too much weather-proofing, and then really only in areas that have trouble with the prevailing winds. Folks who don't have a set up like yours, Red, need to let their house "breathe".

 

[897tgigvib]

I always keep a window open on the other side of my cabin when I use my woodstove. It definitely gives a flow thru effect. You can feel the breeze coming in. The window near the stove would work too, but I'm not a person much susceptible to cold, unless I'm wet.

Oh, the mist over the lake has developed to overhead overcast. Amazing the forest lake basin weather!