Fire on the Hearth

[Juniper]

It's cold and it was kind of gray and gloomy today. Looks like a nice day to have our first fire of the season. We've got a fireplace on the lower level of our split-level home, with an insert. The glass on the insert gets mucked up with soot so we can't usually see the flames, which does reduce the romantic effect, but it sure helps the fire heat the room more efficiently.

I love doing this. The past two years we had an ancient oil furnace. I hated having to call and get the tank refilled, and paying the bill (ouch, $800 just like that!) and every now and then it'd just decide to up and quit till the repairman came out to clean the whatchamacallit or replace the thingamajig - always something going wrong. But although the heat from the fire doesn't reach the whole house, we sure enjoyed having the alternative/supplement.

This year we have a new propane furnace. Unlike the old one that sounded like a jet engine, this one is quiet. It works great. But we'll still use the wood stove, because we cut down TEN TREES last spring and we have enough wood to last us for years if it doesn't rot first. We gave a lot of it away and took it camping with us, but we can't do much more with it because we're in a quarantined county for Emerald Ash Borer and it's illegal to sell and/or transport. So we burn.

Here..


And here.



Oh, so cozy. But you know what?

It's HOT down here!

(My office is on the lower level, ~40 feet from the fireplace)

We need to work on getting this air to circulate better. I proposed cutting holes in the floor upstairs, over the stove, in the dining room. Of course, then putting in grates, similar to those used in old houses with gravity furnaces. Same thing.

Anybody else got a fireplace to brag about and show off? Fire envy? Bwahahahaaaaa!

[Treasenuak]

We have an old wood-burning stove to help the central heating in the house out... it's an old house and the heat-retaining qualities SUCK. But no, no fireplace... and only a little fireplace envy