Reload the garage

We have been burning quite a bit this winter so far, and our wood pile in the garage was depleted.  We had bad weather today so I worked from home and I was able to reload.

There is nothing quite like a wood fire.  It is a lot of work to cut and split the wood, then move it around.  But it has definitely resulted in smaller heating bills and the ambiance can't be beaten.

Chimney Sweeping

I cleaned out the chimney on the fireplace this fall and had to replace the insulation blanket and baffle board.  I think that I will start cleaning the chimney every other year, because it is pretty hard on the those two part when you take them out.

The blanket was $36, and the baffle board was $120.  They are 5 years old now (wow), so I guess it isn't that surprising.  They do get blasted with a lot of heat for 3-4 (5-6) months of the year...

Quadrafire 7100

Cold Days, Burn Wood

You know it is cold when the furnace is running and you are burning wood.  Our fireplace is rated to heat up to 3000 square feet.  When we are heating with it the furnace will generally not run.  The last couple days though it hasn't been able to keep up.  Also, stay out of the basement when it is running, it gets pretty cold down there.  On the plus side the water out of the tap is very cold.

Chimney Sweep

Well it has been two years (didn't burn as much the first year) since we built the house, so it is time to have the chimney cleaned and looked at.  Fireside recommended Smart Sweep as a good guy to call.  Jim Smart came out to the house at 11am (on time), was great with Nick, explaining things to him (and me) and very clean.  He explained that it was something I could do in the future with an investment in a few tools.

I can recommend Jim highly enough, he was professional and friendly.  The fireplace looks great, and we are excited to try it out (once it cools back down).

Total cost was just under $250, so I think I might invest in the tools and give it a go once in awhile.  But when I need a professional, I won't hesitate to call Jim.

Lights going in! Fireplace done.

As you can see the lights are going in today and the fireplace stone is pretty much done, as far as I can tell. The trimmer was there as well, finishing stuff up. I am thinking we can probably install the ceiling speakers at this point, so we might try and do that tonight to show we are doing our part ;)

Woodwork going in!!!

Jen and I took Steve and Amy out to the house to show it off and we were met with this. WOW we are totally excited about them. They look really nice. Only thing is that the fireplace woodbox is not utilizing some of the room that should have been available. Oh well, I don't think that wood is going to last that long anyways...

Heat Zone

I was reading the manual for the fireplace and saw that there is an optional heat zone kit that can be installed with the fireplace. It will pull air from the firebox to heat another area. I think it would be pretty easy to install this and run a vent up to the master bedroom and place a vent under where the bed will be.

Jen and I plan to do a lot of the heating with the fireplace in the winter, and I think this would help to distribute the heat throughout the house. I asked about the kit when we picked out the fireplace and I think it would be about $200 to purchase, and i don't know how much to install. Could probably do it myself, but I don't know what that would do if there was a problem with the chimney later.

Comments would be welcome, we probably need to make a decision this week (as drywall goes up next week probably). One other thing is that since the bedroom is right above the living room, we might get sufficient convection heating.

Fireplace going in

Here is a picture of the fireplace going in. I helped push it into the opening :). I talked to the installers about running a second flue down the area to the left of the fireplace. They said there should be room for that to the left, however I wonder if there is drywall in the chimney to the left... I thought there would be drywall all the way up the chimney, but now it doesn't appear that way.