ᐅ Is having a fireplace still practical in new construction homes today – any experiences?
Created on: 20 Mar 2018 23:34
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PSK
Hello!
My wife and I are currently in the planning phase for our single-family home and are wondering whether a fireplace still makes sense today, although we would like to have one.
To give some background: we both grew up with a fireplace and have always found it very appealing. There is just something special about a fire, and the “pleasant warmth” is great. For that reason, we always intended to install a traditional wood-burning fireplace with an open flame in our house. Specifically, we would like a real eye-catcher integrated into a wall, visible from two or three sides.
Almost every homebuilder we spoke to said that this no longer makes economic sense in modern houses and is more likely to cause overheating. However, it would be possible with all of them. Even a fireplace installation company advised against it. We are currently planning a system with an air-to-water heat pump and underfloor heating throughout the house (about 155m² (1,670 sq ft)), built to KFW55 standard (timber frame). A wall-integrated fireplace would have around 8 kW output, which is far too much. If at all, they recommend installing only a small freestanding fireplace with a maximum of 2-3 kW if we absolutely want one. But we don’t like those due to their size.
Thinking it over, I see the point of these arguments. In this setup, you have a consistent indoor temperature of about 21°C (70°F). You don’t really need a fireplace anymore. The companies estimate heating costs of around 500 euros. A cubic meter of firewood costs roughly 80 euros if you buy it prepared. So, potential cost savings are almost zero. And the chimney along with the fireplace and all the accessories would cost about 8,000 to 10,000 euros. Visually, it would also never quite look how we imagine it. Without a fireplace, we wouldn’t have an intrusive edge in the rooms and could position the doors more freely.
We also had a striking experience: about a year ago, we visited friends who had recently built a house and also have a fireplace. They proudly lit it even though it was already 22°C (72°F) inside, thanks to house automation and pellet heating. Although they barely put any wood in—so the fire was mostly smoldering—the fireplace kept running at full power. After two hours, the temperature reached around 26°C (79°F), and we were sitting in T-shirts (with -10°C (14°F) outside) in the living room. Another hour later, at 29°C (84°F), just before overheating, the friends opened the windows. The takeaway: expensive heat, a poor fire that I then effectively blew out the window!
What are your experiences with or opinions on fireplaces in modern homes?
Thanks in advance!
Best regards
Steffen
My wife and I are currently in the planning phase for our single-family home and are wondering whether a fireplace still makes sense today, although we would like to have one.
To give some background: we both grew up with a fireplace and have always found it very appealing. There is just something special about a fire, and the “pleasant warmth” is great. For that reason, we always intended to install a traditional wood-burning fireplace with an open flame in our house. Specifically, we would like a real eye-catcher integrated into a wall, visible from two or three sides.
Almost every homebuilder we spoke to said that this no longer makes economic sense in modern houses and is more likely to cause overheating. However, it would be possible with all of them. Even a fireplace installation company advised against it. We are currently planning a system with an air-to-water heat pump and underfloor heating throughout the house (about 155m² (1,670 sq ft)), built to KFW55 standard (timber frame). A wall-integrated fireplace would have around 8 kW output, which is far too much. If at all, they recommend installing only a small freestanding fireplace with a maximum of 2-3 kW if we absolutely want one. But we don’t like those due to their size.
Thinking it over, I see the point of these arguments. In this setup, you have a consistent indoor temperature of about 21°C (70°F). You don’t really need a fireplace anymore. The companies estimate heating costs of around 500 euros. A cubic meter of firewood costs roughly 80 euros if you buy it prepared. So, potential cost savings are almost zero. And the chimney along with the fireplace and all the accessories would cost about 8,000 to 10,000 euros. Visually, it would also never quite look how we imagine it. Without a fireplace, we wouldn’t have an intrusive edge in the rooms and could position the doors more freely.
We also had a striking experience: about a year ago, we visited friends who had recently built a house and also have a fireplace. They proudly lit it even though it was already 22°C (72°F) inside, thanks to house automation and pellet heating. Although they barely put any wood in—so the fire was mostly smoldering—the fireplace kept running at full power. After two hours, the temperature reached around 26°C (79°F), and we were sitting in T-shirts (with -10°C (14°F) outside) in the living room. Another hour later, at 29°C (84°F), just before overheating, the friends opened the windows. The takeaway: expensive heat, a poor fire that I then effectively blew out the window!
What are your experiences with or opinions on fireplaces in modern homes?
Thanks in advance!
Best regards
Steffen
G
garfunkel22 Mar 2018 18:23Bookstar schrieb:
I see the conclusion differently. It’s clearly not cost-effective, but it can definitely be a useful addition to a heat pump to raise the living area's temperature a bit. And not to mention the romantic crackling sound 🙂. Exactly,
and you also have to appreciate having a few hours of nice, intense heat.
K
Knallkörper22 Mar 2018 20:01I would recommend choosing a heavy stove with a substantial heat storage mass. It releases heat gradually and continues to warm the room for a long time afterward. As a result, the average heat output is lower and more comfortable. We have a 7 kW (9.4 hp) wood stove with about 900 kg (2,000 lbs) of stone mass, and it works pretty well. Economically, it doesn’t really make sense, and it does create some dirt as well. If we didn’t have a cleaning lady, I’d probably fire up the stove even less often. When planning your garden, you should also consider space for wood storage. Today, I would probably skip the stove, especially since I have a certain level of self-sufficiency thanks to my emergency power generator.
garfunkel schrieb:
The stove builder immediately recommended one with lower output to avoid overheating. Exactly, a fireplace does not inherently overheat at all if it is properly planned and designed. What often happens with fireplaces is this: customers pick the most stylish model they saw in some glossy magazine and think they have to install exactly that. But the magazine usually shows a loft of around 100m² (1,100 sq ft), while the interested reader wants to have it in their 30m² (320 sq ft) living room. The stove retailer is, of course, happy to sell that model, especially since it costs more.
It seems to me that most people buy the fireplace straight from the catalog without planning and adapting it to the local conditions. That can only end badly, meaning overheating, throttling, soot-covered glass, and ultimately a “costly piece of furniture that just stands there unused.” The 10,000 (often more like 15,000 if built by a skilled stove builder) is definitely too much—still, even 1,000 would be too much for me if it were not used.
In our case, we will definitely have a fireplace installed—not for heating, but for the ambiance and the amazing feeling of burning, crackling wood, the distinctly different spectrum of radiant heat—and yes, it is a luxury you certainly don’t need. The same question, in my opinion, applies to a sauna as well… also a luxury and, in my view, a worthwhile investment even though we aren’t installing one ourselves…
From my perspective, this is all just sugarcoating. We have a fireplace and only used it once this winter. My wife really wanted one. Yes, it looks nice when the flames flicker. But for heating, even in our 25-year-old house, I absolutely don’t need it. It’s comfortably warm here anyway; we have a very open ground floor (about 80m² (860ft²)) and once the stove is running, the temperature on that floor easily rises by 3°C (5°F). Since the heating system needs to be adjusted in advance and afterward, it’s not economical. I monitored this on the heating system, and the downward peak is only visible under a microscope. That might save me 2–3% energy. However, I would then need to install thermostats in every room and regulate the underfloor heating (which I have anyway, but it doesn’t matter). Additionally, the underfloor heating is so slow to respond that I still get overheating; this peak can only be controlled faster, not prevented. The cost of installing automatic room controls could cover years of heating—even if the wood were free.
When I renewed the heating system last year, I compared all energy sources and concluded that wood makes absolutely no sense. For us, a cubic meter of firewood (delivered in front of the house) costs €80 (about $88). Then there’s splitting, storing, transporting to the garden, and then into the house. From one cubic meter, I get 1300–1500 kWh, which makes the price about 6 cents per kWh. Oil and gas cost roughly the same, or possibly slightly less. This calculation includes the stove’s efficiency but doesn’t account for occasional overheating. All the overheated energy is paid for on top of that. Then there are chimney sweeping and maintenance costs, not to mention the effort of cleaning. That means, for me, I won’t recover any of the investment costs. Of course, gas and oil prices will rise in the coming years, but wood prices have increased much more over the past 15 years, so even pellet heating now hardly offers any cost advantages.
The only counterargument for me would be if, like my father-in-law, you really enjoy going to the forest with a tractor and preparing your own firewood. That’s not free either, but at least it can save costs if you don’t count the labor time. Still, I doubt the investment will pay off in the long run.
My wife and I both work full-time, so we’re unable to use the stove for basic heating. If we load it in the morning, by the afternoon it’s completely cold. You really have to rely on heated blankets or similar, which are usually quite expensive. Or ideally, turn off the underfloor heating at 5 a.m. if you want to light the stove in the evening. But then your feet get cold again.
So MY conclusion: If you like a cozy atmosphere and watching the fire, you can certainly get a stove or fireplace. But it’s like a sauna or hot tub—you usually have to cover the entire investment cost plus part of the operating costs. It’s pure luxury! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s important to be aware of.
PS: I’ll leave out the fine dust issue because personally, I’m not the type to want to save the world through that. I’m more concerned about the strain on my own lungs when cleaning it, though.
When I renewed the heating system last year, I compared all energy sources and concluded that wood makes absolutely no sense. For us, a cubic meter of firewood (delivered in front of the house) costs €80 (about $88). Then there’s splitting, storing, transporting to the garden, and then into the house. From one cubic meter, I get 1300–1500 kWh, which makes the price about 6 cents per kWh. Oil and gas cost roughly the same, or possibly slightly less. This calculation includes the stove’s efficiency but doesn’t account for occasional overheating. All the overheated energy is paid for on top of that. Then there are chimney sweeping and maintenance costs, not to mention the effort of cleaning. That means, for me, I won’t recover any of the investment costs. Of course, gas and oil prices will rise in the coming years, but wood prices have increased much more over the past 15 years, so even pellet heating now hardly offers any cost advantages.
The only counterargument for me would be if, like my father-in-law, you really enjoy going to the forest with a tractor and preparing your own firewood. That’s not free either, but at least it can save costs if you don’t count the labor time. Still, I doubt the investment will pay off in the long run.
My wife and I both work full-time, so we’re unable to use the stove for basic heating. If we load it in the morning, by the afternoon it’s completely cold. You really have to rely on heated blankets or similar, which are usually quite expensive. Or ideally, turn off the underfloor heating at 5 a.m. if you want to light the stove in the evening. But then your feet get cold again.
So MY conclusion: If you like a cozy atmosphere and watching the fire, you can certainly get a stove or fireplace. But it’s like a sauna or hot tub—you usually have to cover the entire investment cost plus part of the operating costs. It’s pure luxury! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s important to be aware of.
PS: I’ll leave out the fine dust issue because personally, I’m not the type to want to save the world through that. I’m more concerned about the strain on my own lungs when cleaning it, though.
Yes, luxury comes at a cost.
Some people spend their money flying to the Canary Islands for a week in winter, while others prefer to stay comfortably at home throughout the cold season.
Everyone has to decide what suits them best. Personally, I like both [emoji2] I just wouldn’t want to focus on the “work” and the costs involved because, in that case, I’d be better off renting an apartment...
A hobby or luxury rarely pays off financially...
Another aspect, as mentioned earlier, which is often overlooked, is radiant heat: as much as I like underfloor heating, I often miss having a real heat source. You get that with a fireplace.
Some people spend their money flying to the Canary Islands for a week in winter, while others prefer to stay comfortably at home throughout the cold season.
Everyone has to decide what suits them best. Personally, I like both [emoji2] I just wouldn’t want to focus on the “work” and the costs involved because, in that case, I’d be better off renting an apartment...
A hobby or luxury rarely pays off financially...
Another aspect, as mentioned earlier, which is often overlooked, is radiant heat: as much as I like underfloor heating, I often miss having a real heat source. You get that with a fireplace.
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