[Greenbuilding] Fireplace questions

[Bruce Donelson]

Rumsford fireplaces are efficient like horses are essential for plowing.
They were fine a couple of hundred years ago. To keep the smoke from
billowing out into the room, huge quantities of indoor air are sucked into
the firebox, where they mix with the smoke and exit. Any fireplace that lays
any claim to efficiency will burn outside air and use glass doors to keep
from losing indoor air up the stack. Most fireplaces also waft lots of air
up the stack when they are no longer burning, or just smoldering. Big net
energy loss.
Fireplaces ingeneral are not efficient heaters. Better heating efficiency is
available from woodstoves, many of which have glass doors. Then if you have
a power failure, you can use it to heat the house.
Bruce Donelson
A Better builder


Hi,

I have had a hard time finding information about fireplaces in
green building.  I know most fireplaces just suck out warmth,
but I would go with a Rumford fireplace, which is supposed to be
pretty efficient.  I'm in the Austin, Texas area, so I don't
need to heat the house with it; I just like sitting by a nice
fire!  So as long as there is no net energy loss, I'm fine.
With those assumptions in mind:

1. I've read that bringing in outside combustion air is the only
way to go, but rumford.com indicates that due to the Rumford's
efficiency, it's unnecessary, and that your ventilation system
should take care of bringing in makeup air.  Who's right?

2. Assuming rumford.com is right on question 1, would it be
better to put the fireplace in the interior, or would an
exterior wall be OK assuming everything is well sealed,
insulated, etc.?

Thanks for any insight,
    - Ian.

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