Have a fireplace? Use it much?

[NuclearNed]

Our new house has a wood fireplace, one of the perks we were looking for in a house. Last night was the first time we have used it. It was everything I hoped it would be, except that the wife made me make a teeny tiny fire instead of the raging inferno my inner Neanderthal wanted.

Do you use your fireplace? Does cleaning one become such a chore that you don't use it much?

 

[Fritzo]

I use 50% wood and 50% those "packaged fireplace logs" and it cuts down on ash. Get a filtered shop vac and suck out the ash once a week or so. You can use a cleaning log to clean the chimney a couple times a year if you use it a lot.

We used to like to roast hot dogs and pop popcorn on ours We have a gas one down that turns on with a switch or a remote---we got lazy.

 

[warmodder]

Gas. Just flip a switch and it gets nice and toasty. We put it on around the holidays because it looks pretty.

 

[Specop 007]

Have one, always loved them till I owned one.

Its a hole in the side of your house, and if there aint a ragin fire in it its freaking cold. To have many raging fires gets a bit on the expensive side too.

I consider it a pricey luxury not really worth it. I'm looking at pellet inserts for it, and my next house will not have a fireplace but rather a pellet stove.

 

[SearchMaster]

We have one, with a blower insert. It keeps us from having a really nice big pretty fire but it puts out a buttload of heat. The advantage is that the insert closes so I don't have to clean it out that often since you don't see the ash

Oh and we use it fairly often in the winter. We're in N. Georgia so it doesn't get THAT cold but when we have a cold front come through we'll use it almost every night. Another benefit of the insert is that if we regulate the oxygen intake correctly we can set a couple of logs in at night and let them smolder all night, then fire it up the next morning and have instant heat.

 

[soydios]

Gas starter, so I don't have to deal with newspaper and kindling. But yeah, there's nothing like a warm fire at night in the winter. The dog loves it.

+1 caveman

 

[ChaoZ]

We've never used ours even once. It would be much better to just tear it down since it takes up so much space.

 

[Dirigible]

My fireplace is freaking old, like my house. It's so old that it's a coal fireplace and supposedly the fire box isn't safe for wood fires. Since I don't feel like messing around with a bunch of coal, I've never used it. Looks pretty, though.

 

[JohnCU]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
I use 50% wood and 50% those "packaged fireplace logs" and it cuts down on ash. Get a filtered shop vac and suck out the ash once a week or so. You can use a cleaning log to clean the chimney a couple times a year if you use it a lot.

same.

 

[Crusty]

I've got a bunch of junk mail im gonna torch later

pyro ftw

 

[JohnCU]

one night the fireplace chimey caught on fire in the inside :shocked:

 

[MrPickins]

We've never used ours. I'm too lazy to clean it and too afraid of a house fire...

 

[Linflas]

Our first house had a regular wood burning fireplace that we used all the time in the winter. The house we live in now just has a crappy gas fireplace and we haven't turned it on in a couple of years. I'd love to have a real wood burning fireplace put in the basement when I finish it but I suspect it would cost way too much to have done.

 

[Gooberlx2]

In all the places we've lived, my wife and I only really used the wood burning fireplaces. All the gas fireplaces would have killed our utility bill if we had used them as much as we'd have liked....and I love the smell of a lit pile of wood.

We don't have either right now which sucks balls.

 

[Squisher]

Just gas. The wife's got it on all the time.

 

[Modelworks]

I had one in my last house.
It was great when I wanted that warm cozy feeling.
Terrible when it wasn't being used. Heat loss from the room when it wasn't in use was a bit much, even with the damper closed.

I managed to use it almost every day though.
A local furniture company sold me all the wood scraps I wanted, truckload of ash and oak was 65.00 and lasted me about two months.

For heat , a wood stove is the way to go. A small wood stove can make a room feel like the sahara desert even in the coldest of winters.

 

[1sikbITCH]

I use my fireplace all the time. Outside of warming the basement, I've always been a pyromaniac anyway so I start using the fireplace when it hits 50 degrees

I am looking into putting an insert in to make it more economical.

 

[cherrytwist]

The wife and I rented an apartment with a nice wood fireplace. It was an old resort that was converted into "loft style" apartments.

It definitely gets pricey if you use it regularly, but it was a nice way to spend time with the wife.

Playing Guitar Hero III is fun, too. But I miss the fireplace.

GH3 isn't exactly, ya know, romantic. :wine:

 

[Sukhoi]

My dad has a full masonry fireplace (not one of those inserts) and uses it all the time. He just burns trees that fall in the yard. Even using it at least once a week I don't think he cleans it out more than once or twice a winter.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

The gas types tend to be really expensive to run on a regular basis. The wood ones are nice, but the amount of wood they go through is amazing (meaning expensive and time consuming).

 

[GeekDrew]

A house I used to live in had a pretty nice gas-fired fireplace (manual ignition). I used to light it once every few weeks, during the winter. On holidays and etc during the winter when there were a lot of people gathered around, we'd burn it all day.

The house I live in now (and lived in prior to the above house) has a gas fired heating stove, with a blower on it. It's not cheap to run, but it is less expensive than electric baseboard heat, which is our other option in that part of the house, so the gas stove is our primary heating source for part of the house. Thermostat/automatic ignition, I like it quit a bit.

Even if I don't "need" one for heat, if I ever buy or own a house where one can be installed, I'll get one. I love them.

 

[Balt]

We determined ours was actually sucking out more heat than it was providing, so between that and laziness we haven't had one in years.

 

[Superself]

gas vent less fireplace we use it all the time....its on right now.

 

[Kelemvor]

We have a fireplace that the previous owner had a Wood Burning Stove Insert put inside it. We use it all the time and it heats our whole house. First thing I do on a weekend if I'm going to be around all day is shut off the furnace. Then I go stoke up a fire. Most of the time we have to turn it down or open a window because the inserts get incredibly hot. It has a thermometer on it and I've seen it over 800 degrees.

 

[FoBoT]

propane
it has about 150 gal tank
we try to use about half each winter, just to keep it excercised