I am not going to lie I so miss my fireplace in many ways……the number one thing I loved about my fireplace is that on Christmas I would sit on the hearth and enjoy my husband and my kids opening presents and sipping on my coffee. I also loved seeing the flames behind the glass but my husband has that on another project list we have that is ongoing.
Well with the new wood stove the actual hearth is gone and taken up by the wood stove but not having the hearth to sit on is the only downside of the wood stove insert. My husband “The Viking” in my life collected enough free fire wood to keep us in wood until February last winter keeping our utility bills dramatically lower than before we had the wood stove insert installed. The beauty of this wood stove insert is that it was FREE! VERY HEAVY and luckily our neighbor helped my husband to go get it but it was FREE! However not very pretty so my husband bought the stove black paint and found a beautiful architectural piece at a scrap yard that had previously been part of a gate. It is really beautiful now and we get compliments on it all the time!
And the best part of all it heats this entire house in the winter for much of the winter. One advantage of living in a 1500 square foot brick rancher! They obviously don’t make the model of wood stove we have anymore but had we gone out and bought one it would have been around $950 or so we felt like it was a great savings plus a bonus is that I don’t think Biltmore actually makes wood stoves anymore although they do have a Biltmore Hearth and Home store. Thanks for stopping by our lil’ homestead 😉
Fondly,
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We switched out to a wood stove insert as well. I miss hanging the Christmas stocking on the mantle but when you weigh the benefits of the insert, it’s worth it. We also got a kettle to place on ours which sends out steam periodically into the room since they can dry the air a bit.
I have been thinking about wood heat as well, I am tired of sky high utility bills. I am concerned however that wood heat might not be good for my son’s asthma, I need to do a little research and find out if it could be a problem at all. I love the warmth put out by wood stoves, both my sister and good friend heat their homes this way, and it seems great.
April my son had asthma and we continued to use wood heat but the Doc told me to keep his room dust free….”well I tried…” ;)…..and I keep his window cracked just a little in the winter to allow for fresh air and some damper air. Of course sometimes we have to run the humidifier but I agree health issues are always a concern.
I don’t understand how these stoves get your whole house warm, lol. Do you have ‘ducts’ that go in to your rooms? just curious.
Bobbi – Good Question……actually my husband has designed in other houses we have lived in a central return on the hvac system over the woodstove. He has not done this where we live now however our house is almost half the size of our old house. However we run central air fan to help circulate the air through out our house. We live primarily in the living room and kitchen and the bedrooms are cooler in the Winter……..I don’t walk around barefoot either ;)……..but I am not freezing I am comfortable in socks and a long sleeve shirt……..thanks so much for stopping in!
Well, your wood stove insert looks wonderful first of all.
And secondly,we have a wood burning stove and propane heaters. We hardly use the heaters at all– sometimes in the morning to knock the chill off before the fire gets roaring. Our heater keeps our home warm enough, though it isn’t as tight as a brick home. We live in a peer and beam farm house– so it gets quite chilly sometimes. The advantage here; and this might settle who an argument over who needs to tend the fire, is this~ the person doing the fire building usually gets warm the fastest! 😉
I would like to get the stove black on our stove this year– it is looking a bit neglected. Your’s is gorgeous– I don’t have a hearth either. The upside– you get a tad bit closer with the rocking chair.
~ enjoy!
Thanks so much Pat! My husband says he is always the warmest ;)…..thought you would get a kick out of that one. I thought it was so clever how he found that art work at a scrap yard and cut it out for our design. I do love it so……We used to live in a big house with a lot of air flow…built in 1906. I need to post some pictures some time of it……..it seems like it was years ago but it was only about 5 years ago. Our stove then was just a big black freestanding pedestal woodstove but I was truly grateful for it. Our insert stove has a fan too that we can run but we usually do the whole house thing as I posted earlier. Thanks for stopping by! I will have to check out your blog too!
We have a stove insert in our fireplace but it has a grate we can put in to use it as a “fireplace”. I love it 🙂 It helps lower our heating bill drastically.
Looks great!!!
Moira
Thanks Moira! I hope you stop in again!
What a great find Karen Lynn and a great score on the firewood too. We have been talking about getting an insert too, but the prices make me squirm so I’ve been waiting to see one at a yard sale. Have a great week. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Heidi if we have not found this for free I know we would not have gotten the model we did! I just linked up to your weekly blog hop!
Im buying a house and it currently has a woodstove insert , but because it was installed before 2010 its not certified, so the Seller has to remove the woodstove before Im able to purchase the house 🙁 How do you get around putting in or keeping a woodstove thats not certified?
I’m not sure…one because I don’t know where you live or what the laws are…..but one thing you could do is ask the seller to let you have the wood stove anyway as part of the contract because you plan to get it certified by a professional “Wood Stove” certifier????? at a later date. Then after the transaction maybe you could possibly self install. Just thinking out loud…What would make it certified? Does it need to be professionally installed? I guess my no. 1 question is what would make it certified but sometimes you have to think outside the box with this stuff. Surely you do not want a wood stove that is not in good condition my neighbors house caught on fire from a wood stove that was not properly installed. Another thing is could the sellers get it officially certifed by a professional? Could you negotiate for that? Let me know what happens either way we don’t know what’s going to happen to our economy so try to get the wood stove thrown in and hold on to it in storage if possible. Just what I would try to do.
Found out it’s Oregon law ~ ao Aug 2010 ORS 468A.460-468A.515 requires all sellers to remove or destroy uncertified fuel burning devices prior to closing of sale. A certified label is one that bears a label by Oregon DEQ or EPA. The paperwork for the purchase of house puts this on the seller to do but also gives info to contact DEQ or EPA depts to get more info. So thanks I’ll ask the seller if they would like to temporarily remove it and then I can have it checked out. Getting it certified probably would cost less than buying a whole new one. I’ll post back on the results. Its a short sale so might be a while tho 😉
Ani wow you really did your research….I agree getting the unit certified would cost way less than getting a new one and I have to tell you when I found out how much money they cost I was so relieved to find a FREE one! Please keep me posted on how all of this works out. Good Luck with your home purchase!