When you see the picture of the perfect American living room in a home, there's a cozy room with a couch, recliner and a fireplace burning beautifully. People love to sit by the fireplace watching the flames encircling the logs. Not only does the fireplace add warmth but it adds atmosphere. Unfortunately a fireplace in a home is not perfect. There are many issues that make a fireplace very inefficient.
When a fireplace is burning, it radiates warmth into the air around it. But it also creates a current that actually pulls that air out of your room and up through the chimney. So basically warm air is escaping and your fireplace has to work even harder to warm your room. The damper on the chimney is supposed to keep the air from coming in or escaping from the house. But most are not constructed very well and the seal around the edges of the damper still allows air to escape.
There are ways to avoid this situation. You can get a new damper that you install at the tope of your chimney. This type of damper works similar to a storm door and air cannot get around it. You can get such a product online and you can install it yourself if you're comfortable going on top of your roof.
Another option you have is to change your wood burning fireplace into a gas fireplace. You can get a gas fireplace insert which can look just like a regular wood burning fireplace. The logs in these heaters look like they are truly burning. Depending on your home construction and budget, you have several options on how to install and vent the fireplace. Most gas fireplaces use propane or natural gas sources. Many homeowners are happy with this change because the chore of cutting and storing wood and cleaning up the ashes is too great. A gas fireplace eliminates that need.
You can also replace your fireplace with an electric heater. There are portable electric heaters that look just like fireplaces. You can get an electric fireplace heater that has a fan which can very efficiently heat a whole room quickly. Electric heaters are 100% efficient in how they heat a room. 100% of the electricity that is used is turned into heat and put back out into the room.
One drawback is that the thermostat is normally in the main room which holds the fireplace. The room with the fireplace becomes very warm and the thermostat turns off the heat. Now the rest of the house cools off because there is no heat and the fireplace warmth cannot reach them. You may want to get a portable space heater of some of the other rooms in your house.
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