Quote:
Originally Posted by RobertSmalls
Most (okay, all) of the fireplaces I've seen draw in combustion air from the house, and send most of the energy from the wood up the flue. These are primarily decorative devices.
|
Not sure where you are finding these fire places, but like I said I've worked cleaning wood burning fire places for almost 10 years and have only seen a few that don't draw outside air in to the fire box and alot of fire places also have some sort of heat exchanger on them, that either uses natural convection or has a fan that blows air.
Then there is the theory that the fire place should be heating not just the air but the mass of stone or brick and that is why you need to have it in the center of your house is if that mass is on an outside wall then you really are loosing that heat.
But the big thing that keep warm air in a house from going up the chimney is the dampener, that heavy steel door that closes off the chimney when the fire place is not in us, they do wear out over time and people do forget to close them.
The other thoughts that I had about that list was the suggestion that you should not put solar on your roof as it would keep you from collecting rain water... solar hot water and solar electric tend to have a layer of tempered safety glass, collecting water off a glass section of roof works really well, you get much cleaner water then asphalt shingles gives you, he didn't say anything about putting a steel roof on your house that I remember seeing, they aregreat for rain water collection and they last 100+ years along with being recyclable instead of going in the land fill and polluting our ground water and the only advantage that wood siding has is that it's cheap, steel siding will also last 100+ years or more and never needs an oil based stain like wood and tends to give a tighter house.