Teach me about adding a fireplace

I grew up in a house with a fireplace and it was one of my check boxes when searching for a house.  I had to compromise and I got a house without one.

There is a perfect corner of my living room for a fireplace.  What are the drawbacks to adding one?  I know about the drawbacks of the fireplace itself: potential for cold drafts, increased risk of burning down the house, yadda yadda, but what are some things I'm not thinking of?

Insurance rates?  Hard to get a permit?

is it hard to do?  Expensive?  Worthwhile to add a gas line to it for easy starts and warming up the flue?  It would be on an outside wall, so I could potentially exit the flue in the wall instead of the roof to prevent future leak points.

Talk to me y'all.

Insurance definitely. IIRC from my State Farm days, a fireplace is worth 20-30% increase in your HO policy rates.

A couple of things I can think of: You'll want it to have it's own fresh air intake or you'll suck cold air through every crack in your house. There is a 2' above 10' feet across rule for chimneys to make sure they draw right. A wood stove with glass doors is WAY more efficient.

I don't know much about adding one where there wasn't, but can chime in on what to install. We got rid of the standard fireplace thing that was here when we moved in. It was useless. The house heat was one of those stupid Cadet wall heaters in every room. Might as well light money on fire for all the good they do. Now we have a fireplace insert, like a woodstove hybrid (travis industries, who make Lopi stoves. It's an Elite 35 if ya wanna google). So it draws air from outside, both combustion air and air for the blower. There's a catalytic converter in there to burn the smoke and provide more heat. Since we don't have gas out here, all this adds up make the up front cost and effort totally worth it. It heats the whole dern house no problem.

In reply to Curtis :

It will definitely add to your insurance cost. And as others have said you need to have access to outside air or it will suck cold air into the house in a dramatic fashion. 

Next, the worst place to put it is where most fireplaces are put. An outside wall.  A masonry fireplace has no insulation and radiates heat outside when in use and cold air inside when not. 

Gas fireplaces can be clearly seen on a thermal scan from the outside indicating a massive heat loss when burning. If located next to an outside wall.

The ideal spot is close to the center of the house  so heat will radiate all around. Where to put the intake and exhaust flues becomes an issue then.  But best if the exhaust flue is horizontal rather than vertical. Some Heat from the exhaust will radiate over its length.  But if vertical the heat rises thing means a lot of heat is wasted right up the exhaust stack 

Would a wood stove be an acceptable compromise?

Add a woodstove if you want to actually heat the house with it and it's easier to install. Our Jotul is extremely efficient and heats our home with ease. There's a glass door on it so you can still see the fire if that was your primary goal.

If you are going with an all brick fireplace with hearth and chimney, etc. consider that your foundation may not be able to support that added load.  

One house I owned had a built in fireplace as original installation.  It was approximately in the center of the slab and there were 3 cracks in the slab radiating from the fireplace at roughly 120 degree angles.  This was not apparent when I bought the house but was discovered when I took up the old flooring and put down new.  

I think there are modular fireplaces on the market made of heavy sheet metal that are much much lighter.    Of course all the same precautions against catching your house on fire are still needed.   

If possible get a gas log type modular fireplace, it lights more quickly, no cleanup, and they are designed to actually put out some usable heat.        Of if you go with the log burning type make sure it is designed to put out heat otherwise it just sucks warm air out your house which gets heated and sent up the chimney while sucking cold replacement air into your home.  

Also make sure SHMBO isn't the type to complain constantly that the smokey smell is aggravating, makes her eyes water, says "why do you light that thing when you know I hate it", or even worst "if you want to see me naked you better not light that damn fireplace",  etc. 

jharry3 said:

If you are going with an all brick fireplace with hearth and chimney, etc. consider that your foundation may not be able to support that added load.  

One house I owned had a built in fireplace as original installation.  It was approximately in the center of the slab and there were 3 cracks in the slab radiating from the fireplace at roughly 120 degree angles.  This was not apparent when I bought the house but was discovered when I took up the old flooring and put down new.  

I think there are modular fireplaces on the market made of heavy sheet metal that are much much lighter.    Of course all the same precautions against catching your house on fire are still needed.   

If possible get a gas log type modular fireplace, it lights more quickly, no cleanup, and they are designed to actually put out some usable heat.        Of if you go with the log burning type make sure it is designed to put out heat otherwise it just sucks warm air out your house which gets heated and sent up the chimney while sucking cold replacement air into your home.  

Also make sure SHMBO isn't the type to complain constantly that the smokey smell is aggravating, makes her eyes water, says "why do you light that thing when you know I hate it", or even worst "if you want to see me naked you better not light that damn fireplace",  etc. 

Gas fireplaces sure are a lot easier than a wood burning one.  I don’t know about safety though, insurance rates don’t seem to give a break either way.  

A wood burning one is romantic as heck. Watching the flames burn down until they are coals. Certain woods give a lovely smell like Apple and pear.  While Cherry embers glow green. Oak while it’s a extremely long lasting heat has an acrid smell as does black walnut and hickory.  

But hauling wood in makes a mess. The ashes need to sit for a week in a steel bin to be safely disposed of.  

I have virtually unlimited access to wood but in some parts of the country burning wood is like burning money.  A cheap source of wood is slab wood. Trees are round,  boards are flat, cutting boards out of round trees leaves slab wood.  If they debarked the tree to sell off the bark when you burn the slab wood you will get minimal ash. ( and extremely easy starting ) 

I can buy a whole pickup truck filled with slab wood for $10 a load. That’s about 2 cords if I don’t mind the truck riding home on the bump stops. 

A free source is pallets.  I heated my whole house one winter with free pallets picked up at a nearby mfg plant.  Ten minutes with a Skil saw had a nights worth of wood to burn.  Nails and all  in the spring I used a magnet to retrieve the nails and sold them for scrap 

I should clarify.  I don't care one bit about heat.  My tiny 800sf house had its biggest gas bill of $64 last winter.  $45-50 is more typical.  I love fire.  Ideally, it would be an open fireplace where I could burn wood.  In fact, I am so in love with the idea of having a fireplace, I found a channel on my smart TV of a video fireplace.  Between our three family farms, I have never-ending access to all the oak, maple, locust, walnut, ash, hickory, pine, and mulberry I can possibly consume.  Just today I loaded the truck with a 6' bed worth of red oak, chestnut oak, and maple, and there are probably 6 more truckloads from the trees we took down.  I would be adding a fireplace as an aesthetic thing.  As frenchyd said, it's romantic as heck.  I have been known to have a fire in our fireplace in the dead of summer in TX just because I wanted a fire.  I called it marathon training for the HVAC.

A woodstove is a possibility.  I should say a distant possibility.  For the most part, woodstoves get loaded with wood, the door gets closed, and they are used for heating.  They are large chunks of black cast iron and I'm not a big fan, especially because I won't be using it for its intended purpose; home heating.  You can get a glass front stove, but it doesn't take 2 hours before the glass is hopelessly coated with soot.  I want to hear the crackles and hisses, see the flames, feel the radiant heat, cook a hot dog or make s'mores.  I want to set my dutch oven near the coals with cornbread batter or pork and kraut in it.  If it happens to shave $3 off my gas bill, great.  If the additional air infiltration from the flue adds $10 to my gas bill, don't care.

The floor under where this fireplace would be has a crawlspace about 12" below subfloor.  It would be pretty simple to cut out the floor, build some forms, and pour whatever I need.  That way the hearth is sitting on compacted ground with concrete tied into a corner of the foundation.

I can think of a million DIY/tech director/set construction ways to make it happen, but also don't want to wake up dead.

Today's load... and this is just for a couple months of my backyard campfire ring.

I can burn wood all day at -15 and not have my glass door on my woodstove turn black. If it does, you are burning at too low of a temperature and not getting secondary combustion. A stick n magnetic thermometer is the best way to get the stove up to temp fast, reduce the dampers and get a slow burn all day long with just a few pieces of wood. With an open fireplace you just burn wood like crazy.

Honestly, given your situation, I'd just keep doing the TV thing inside and the fire pit outside.

 HIn reply to Curtis :

Well much of what I provided doesn’t apply to you.  I come from cold winters and serious heating bills. A Masonry fireplace should do just fine. There are plenty of sites that will give you the demensions you need.  Keep it simple, without the need to save heat just let the smoke go up the Chimney 

How tight is your house?  Too tight and you’ll need to add make up air. But normal postwar construction should be no problem. 

Your first fire should tell the tail. 

Consider a zero clearance fireplace.  Gas logs behind glass you can control with a remote control.  You will have a small flue on outside of house, maybe 18 inch by 18 by 12 inches deep.  It also provides some heat and almost no draft.

My house was built in the early 20s.  The doors and windows have been replaced, but it still has aluminum siding, so I doubt it has Tyvek wrap.  It isn't drafty by any means, but I'm pretty sure it will get enough air.  The attic has two open gable vents and one of those plywood panels in the ceiling to access it.  That alone would probably be enough of a leak.  I'll do some research and maybe do a design that incorporates a fresh air supply... if for no other reason than maybe someday I would re-do siding and wrap the house, or seal off the attic and blow in more insulation.

I would consider a zero clearance gas burner, but that doesn't offer much more than my TV with a fireplace channel.  Can't cook a hot dog on it or get the full fire experience.

Not that this is my main concern... but what will this do to home value?  I know it is a desirable thing to have, but I also don't really want to spend $5000 on a fireplace if it only adds $500 of value to the house.  I guess I'm thinking; how GRM and DIY do I want to get on this project to get the desired result without spending way more than I increase the value.

In other words, I don't want to put a $6000 Hemi in a Yugo and end up with a $4000 car, but if I build the Hemi from free scavenged parts myself....  Make sense?

I love having a wood fireplace and it’s a requirement for me anywhere we live.  I honestly have never paid attention to whether or not it has raised our insurance.  Gas just isn’t the same for me,  in our current house someone had converted the wood fireplace to gas,  so as soon as we moved in I converted it back to wood.  

I know that here, in central Indiana, having a wood fireplace or a wood burning furnace inside the house makes it not only expensive but difficult to get home insurance. My grandmother's house had a fantastic forced air wood furnace. We used it for 20 years. Insurance came out and dropped her because it was a wood burner inside the house. She tried 3 different companies and only 1 would insure her, but at 3 times her old rate. So we spent $2500 upgrading the old gas furnace, disassembling the wood burner and they put her right back on at her old rate. 

Wife and I added a gas for our house about 4 years ago. I went huge. 36k BTU LP fireplace. We can run it for about 2 hours and the house will be stupid hot. Being a real fire, it is a nice dry warmth that you don't get with electric heat. 

Just talked to my insurance agent.  Depending on the size (opening, flue, etc) it adds between $40-50 per year to my premium.  That is certainly livable

All this fireplace talk finally got me to call someone out to come clean and inspect our chimney next week. It has no external clean out, so I won't be burning wood in it, but it would still be nice to take advantage of the "ambiance" provided by some of the fancier gas logs. 

House has central heat and air, so purely for looks vs heating.

Curtis said:

Not that this is my main concern... but what will this do to home value?  I know it is a desirable thing to have, but I also don't really want to spend $5000 on a fireplace if it only adds $500 of value to the house.  I guess I'm thinking; how GRM and DIY do I want to get on this project to get the desired result without spending way more than I increase the value.

In other words, I don't want to put a $6000 Hemi in a Yugo and end up with a $4000 car, but if I build the Hemi from free scavenged parts myself....  Make sense?

How soon are you planning on selling? In the next year or two that’s  A valid question. Not in the foreseeable future?  Who cares?  

Also what is it worth to you to have a back up heating source if all power goes out?  

As for costs, if you’re like me you can scrounge around and get materials very cheap or free. Look at the stone work on my place.  It’s called London Cobble it was extremely inexpensive it just looks expensive. You  can build a nice fireplace using river rock. Aren’t there plenty of dry bed rivers around just waiting for you to pick?  

True you’ll need flue material etc. but that’s cheap enough. Between Mortar, a damper, flue pieces etc  I’d budget about $1000 and scrounge until I had enough 

If you’ve seen pictures of my driveway that’s 17,000 bricks. Plus retaining wall bricks and walkway bricks etc.  each section of stonework on my walls has about 5 bricks or brick pieces in it. Plus Granite pieces I scrounged, and the Chiron Rustic Which is the major stone.  But total Bricks has to be around 35-40,000!  

That cost me two cases of beer, except my neighbor wanted 5 loads and he bought the beer for me. Yes it took me a whole summer to lay all the brick but it was sorta fun. I mean I didn’t hate doing the work and I really enjoyed the end result.  

I’m proud of my scrounging 

You could get an old Fisher stove, i have the Grandpa model and you can get a screen and open the doors for the fireplace experience. It really heats well too although i know thats not your intended purpose. Putting it in will be much less work and money too.

An actual built fireplace while cool can be very expensive, they require some math for draw etc. Inserts are wide ranging in sizes and can be a lot cheaper

frenchyd said:

Curtis said:

Not that this is my main concern... but what will this do to home value?  I know it is a desirable thing to have, but I also don't really want to spend $5000 on a fireplace if it only adds $500 of value to the house.  I guess I'm thinking; how GRM and DIY do I want to get on this project to get the desired result without spending way more than I increase the value.

In other words, I don't want to put a $6000 Hemi in a Yugo and end up with a $4000 car, but if I build the Hemi from free scavenged parts myself....  Make sense?

How soon are you planning on selling? In the next year or two that’s  A valid question. Not in the foreseeable future?  Who cares?  

Also what is it worth to you to have a back up heating source if all power goes out?  

As for costs, if you’re like me you can scrounge around and get materials very cheap or free. Look at the stone work on my place.  It’s called London Cobble it was extremely inexpensive it just looks expensive. You  can build a nice fireplace using river rock. Aren’t there plenty of dry bed rivers around just waiting for you to pick?  

True you’ll need flue material etc. but that’s cheap enough. Between Mortar, a damper, flue pieces etc  I’d budget about $1000 and scrounge until I had enough 

If you’ve seen pictures of my driveway that’s 17,000 bricks. Plus retaining wall bricks and walkway bricks etc.  each section of stonework on my walls has about 5 bricks or brick pieces in it. Plus Granite pieces I scrounged, and the Chiron Rustic Which is the major stone.  But total Bricks has to be around 35-40,000!  

That cost me two cases of beer, except my neighbor wanted 5 loads and he bought the beer for me. Yes it took me a whole summer to lay all the brick but it was sorta fun. I mean I didn’t hate doing the work and I really enjoyed the end result.  

I’m proud of my scrounging 

No plans on selling, but I'm a bit fickle sometimes.  I certainly won't quibble about a couple grand here and there.  It's not like I'm talking about adding three bedrooms where I could lose my shirt

Backup heating is a very good point.  Right now I have gas forced air and one baseboard unit that is about 24" long.  Both would be useless if the power went out.  That also gives me a new target budget; as long as I can do a fireplace for less than a whole-house generator, it is a win.

Scrounging is a beautiful thing.  I would prefer stone instead of brick for my decor, and I do live next to many streams and a large river.  The river has some sandstone but primarily shale.  I do, however have access to sandstone and limestone on the farms.  Getting the rock won't be an issue.  Getting the knowledge I need to make it a successful build that won't burn down the house is another thing.

Can someone explain some of the differences?  I suppose there is an insert, a masonry, and a stove type?

I've heard about "inserts" which I assume is a more simple process.  That sounds like you build a wall and a flue and put a steel box in the wall, right?  If that's the case I could always do an insert and then face it with whatever masonry I want.

I suppose I need to make the trip to a fireplace store.  There actually is one about 10 miles from me, but I think they specialize in the decorative gas and electric wall units.

Curtis said:

Can someone explain some of the differences?  I suppose there is an insert, a masonry, and a stove type?

I've heard about "inserts" which I assume is a more simple process.  That sounds like you build a wall and a flue and put a steel box in the wall, right?  If that's the case I could always do an insert and then face it with whatever masonry I want.

I suppose I need to make the trip to a fireplace store.  There actually is one about 10 miles from me, but I think they specialize in the decorative gas and electric wall units.

Masonry is what fireplaces were historically made from. An insert goes inside a fireplace to gain efficiency and avoid the labor of wood burning.  And a stove is a stand alone usually metal fire container. 

There are plenty of good books about building a fireplace. Its also how I learned to do masonry work.   Well that and watching masons. The difference is I developed my own style of work. Since I wasn’t paid by the hour I did things the way I felt most comfortable doing, not the way the experts did it. 

Proof is over 15 years since I put my stone up on the wall there isn’t a single crack or loose stone. 

Learn what a brick tie is and use them liberally. When the mortar gets dry and crumbly toss it, don’t try to save it. Even stone work needs to follow good masonry practice, in other words treat stone like brick and have each joint on a solid stone.  

In reply to Curtis : An insert will be massively more expensive than a masonry fireplace that you scrounge the stone veneer for.  An insert  can easily be installed wrong!  

But a masonary fireplace if you follow the procedures is pretty straightforward