? about fireplace

**banana** · 08-31-2006, 07:06 PM

A question for those of you with a regular wood buring fireplace. If you have glass doors do you leave them open or shut while the fire is going? I have one and always keep the doors open but someone told me otherwise. ( I do shut the glass doors at night once the fire dies down) My fireplace doesnt have a heatilator or fan it is just a plain old brick fireplace.

Anyone care to share their tips?

**ConnieD** · 08-31-2006, 07:59 PM

We don't shut our doors really tight, except at night when the fire is dying down, but we do have a fan on our fireplace.
Without a fan, I'd be tempted to leave my doors wide open, otherwise your heat is just going right up the chimney.

Is there any way to have a heatilator installed??? I know this makes a huge difference in heating the house. I'd look into it, if I were you

When we have the wood fireplace going we put the furnace fan on (not just auto) and it circulates the heat through the whole house ( 2 floors, 2000 sq ft on each floor) enough so that the furnace doesn't even kick on. At times it's kept the thermostat (upstairs) at 74 degrees.

I know we're going to be burning a lot more wood this year. We live in southern ON and were hit with a bug called the Emerald Ash Borer that kills all the ash trees. A couple years ago we had to take down 30 trees off our property. I was heartbroken............. but at least we have lots of wood to burn.

HTH,

**pkellyc** · 09-01-2006, 11:56 AM

Read the mfg's directions and you will see that if you leave them closed with a full fire burning they can break. I have glass doors because by shutting them at night when the fire has burned down you cut your heat loss by 80%. I live in a Cape Cod house my and my furnace will not run when I have a fire going, but at night without the fireplace doors the furnace runs and runs with all the heat going up the chimney. We wake up freezing in the morning.

**mustang80** · 09-04-2006, 02:44 PM

I leave my glass doors open while the fire is going and close them when the fire is dying down.

I have a damper question. If I close the damper, my house smells like fire. I leave it open all the time, but not all the way. Just one notch closed. Anyone else have this problem?

**Darlene** · 09-04-2006, 03:48 PM

I agree with Connie about getting a fireplace insert. We have one and it practically heats our house. It has glass doors that still allow you to see the fire but you actually get some heat out to help keep those fuel costs down.
http://www.vermontcastings.com/conte...egory=11&sc=13

**MarshHen** · 09-06-2006, 11:26 AM

In our last house, our fireplace had glass doors but we never closed them while a fire was burning cause there was less heat actually heating the house. I didn't have doors installed on the new fireplace, but did invest in a large fire screen to catch popping embers.