So I posted a few questions about propane stoves awhile back... but I'm leaning back towards my original plan of placing a wood stove inside my masonry fireplace. I love my fireplace but the fires are for ambiance only... damn near all the heat goes right up the chimney.
Several factors are making me like this idea; initial cost is far less than a whole propane setup, for the size stove I can get wood will give me more BTUs, I already have wood stacked, etc.

My brick fireplace is large. The brick work takes up an entire wall and it has an arched opening, 48" wide and 30" tall. I am trying to add supplemental heat to a roughly 300 sq. ft. room with a vaulted ceiling.

My question: if I buy a small Jotul cast iron stove and place it inside the fireplace flush with the brick, will it give me any heat? My concern is the stove will heat the surrounding bricks and I'll be left getting whatever radiates off the front only. The stove is rated for up to 1000 sq. ft. I haven't been able to find much info about this type of set-up, and I don't feel like dropping $1,500 just to warm up the bricks.

Educate me

That stove works best in the middle of the room with it being able to let the heat dispurse from all sides and not just the front. Might be able to put an eco fan in there to help a bit.

Not trying to hijack this thread, but I'm also looking at wood heating options. I have a wood-burning insert that needs replaced and I've been looking at the Jotul options. Can you elaborate on the "eco fan"? The only thing that drives me nuts about my insert is that I have to run the power cord for the fan across the fireplace bricks and across a section of floor to reach an outlet. It looks awful. Is there another way?

My old inserts fan went out a few years ago, so I bought one of these on a whim. It spins off of the heat produced, its wire free and worked fantastic.



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBBGYGQ/re ... 9704476794

Modern stoves are pretty damn good at pulling lots of btu's out of the wood and putting it into the surrounding air and mass. You have a fairly sound plan there. Heating the mass of bricks will provide a rather consistent heat for the room. Make sure you get a fan for the stove and one for the "alcove" it sits in and it should put you out of the room once it gets going. Heating a mass is actually a better way to use the heat than just heating the air. The modern well insulated house does well with a smaller stove when realistically heating just one room. Getting heat down hallways etc doesnt work well without a central fan system or fans to move the air and usally boils you out of the principal room

Only drawback i see in the plan is that if this is one of thier smaller stoves it may not have a great burn time per load. Jotul makes nice stuff if a bit spendy.

Keep in mind modern propane and wood stove manufacturers spend a good amount of R&D to get the most out of the fuel source so either would be a good choice.

My wood burning stove had a fan behind it.. I could get the house from 40's to over 100 (By accident, I swear!) in about an hour...

Thank you for the input. It seems like it will work in my head but sometimes it's helpful to bounce it off someone else...make sure you're not missing something.
Part of the reason I like this plan is it will also allow me to use the existing chimney (with a liner) so no new holes in the roof and no lost floor space.
I'm going go look at small Vermont Castings stove tomorrow too. Those eco fans look like a good addition as well.

Jotul also makes a fireplace insert in addition to the free standing stove

I looked briefly at inserts... but my opening is so large it would require a custom steel surround that is fairly expensive. I feel like setting a stove inside the fireplace is the easiest and cheapest option.

Yup, I know your pain. I needed to specially order a 52" wide cover for mine from Coastal Farm when I bought my Quadrafire.. Nobody carried this size in stock.

So after even more online research and talking to some stove people... I just put $ down on a pellet insert at Coastal Farm and Ranch
Damn pricey but I think long term I'm going to be happy with pellets. Plus the manufacturer had a $300 coupon (Harmon), and Coastal had an additional $300 off, with a free ton of pellets to boot. Those savings took some of the sting off. Due to the size of my fireplace, a custom surround has to get made too. I'll have flex liner up the chimney to finish it off.
As it turns out, my original plan of setting a wood burning stove inside the fireplace would have been very inefficient so hopefully this is a good investment.
And now I guess I have two cords of seasoned wood to sell...

Nice!

Coastal did me a solid also. They had a nice rebate incentive and their installing crew was top notch.

What type of firewood?

Have you taken all the other things that go along with burning wood? gathering, cutting, splitting stacking? It is a lot of work and the 4 or 5 cords you burn a year is not worth it to everyone. I burned for two year and didn't have the time to deal with it. I will still burn when its crazy cold and we have the time, other than that I run propane. Bill went up 100 bucks a month, but I was spending way more than that in time.

I didn't stack it, it came with the house but it appears to be mostly Douglas fir. There might be some other hardwood in there but I haven't really gone through the stacks. It's been under cover at least 18 months but probably longer.
I'll be stacking bags of pellets in its place!

Sorry I missed that part. Not a bad choice on the pellet stove.