[303lithgow]

I'm in Ephrata it my parents-in-law's house that was built around 1953 and it has a fireplace with a built in heatilator. I've been here when its below zero outside and the fireplace heats the house so good we sometimes have had to open a door even whin its that cold.

Plus its so dry here the wood burns so good.

 

[303lithgow]

Yep - those houses built before A.D. 200 were the best....

Seriously, I know folks up north with heatilators and they work great. Practically heat the whole house with it.

This one would heat the entire house if an electric fan was put in to circulate the hot air.

 

[303lithgow]

Back many years ago when we had a house (split entry) with fireplaces I put in a coal stove with a cover that completely covered the front of the downstairs fireplace and the pipe went up into the chimney flue. I cut in a register to the upstairs and that is how I heated the house. I would burn about 2-3 ton of stove coal a year.

It is nice to build a fire in the fireplace on cool nights but if you plan to heat the whole house you will burn a lot of wood in a winter season and likely need more than one fireplace. The old colonial houses had a fireplace in most every room. Obviously it depends on what part of the country you live but if you get long cold winters then I would think you would burn 8-10 cord of wood running a fireplace all the time.

The house in Ephrata is small and heats the living room, dining room and kitchen. Very little heat gets back to the bedrooms but I like sleeping in a cold room. Ephrata is in Grant County which has its own dam on the Columbia River so electricity is cheap so the baseboard heaters will take care of the bedrooms cheap. And I do mean cheap.