A fireplace insert can help ensure that your heat doesn’t go up the chimney
Benefits include lower energy bills and cozy atmosphere.
With a fireplace insert, you can control the amount of air to the fire and the amount of fuel you use. You can have a longer-lasting fire. An insert can also make an existing fireplace function better.
Many homes have a fireplace. But fireplaces are notorious for wasting energy because the heat escapes through the chimney.
The key to maintaining energy efficiency is a wood-burning fireplace insert that keeps the heat in the house. Installing an insert can add another source of heat, lowering energy bills for gas or oil, for example. The insert has a blower, and it reduces our oil bills.
If you don’t have this [metal] box all this heat would go up the chimney. You want to get some of that heat back into the room to make it comfortable. It makes it cozy.
The insert has been particularly useful this year with back-to-back snowstorms and freezing temperatures.
They are not alone. As people began spending more time at home during 2020, the demand for comfort has grown. Beginning in the fall of 2020, fireplaces and accessories became increasingly popular.
With a 2,000-square-foot house, most only need one fireplace insert to heat the whole house.
An insert is a metal box inserted into your existing fireplace. It’s a controlled combustion device. A fireplace is not controlled except by how much wood you use.
With an insert, you can control the amount of air to the fire and the amount of fuel — wood — you use. Inserts vary but are increasingly technologically advanced. An insert can have a vent at the top and at the bottom to control the air flow as well as a blower that can disperse the hot air from the fire. Owners can control the air supply to the fire with the vents. With less oxygen, the fire burns slower and produces less heat. You can have a longer-lasting fire.
An insert creates a closed combustion chamber with 70 to 80 percent efficiency. This means you harvest more of the heat energy that’s in the fuel [the wood] and less of it goes up the chimney.
For more information please visit The Woodstove Fireplace & Patio Shop in Littleton, MA.
Source: washingtonpost.com
