The Inefficiency of Traditional Fireplaces
Traditional fireplaces have a beloved place in our collective consciousness, they are beautiful, warm, homey, and add a natural center point and gather point to a home-setting, especially during the holidays when everyone is home and things should be warm and happy. But many install traditional fireplaces thinking that by burning wood they will decrease the cost of heating for the time when the fire is in operation. Unfortunately, no matter how warm or beautiful or treasured that fireplace is to you, it is not saving any money at all on heating costs. In order to reap savings using a non-central heating system, you should actually look at a gas fireplace with heatilator gas logs, or a wood stove, or even a fireplace insert if you would like to maintain the appearance of a fireplace in your main room.
The problem with traditional fireplaces involves the very basic physical fact that heat rises. As the fire burns it heats up the local air, some of which you or your cat experiences as you lay-about near the exposed flames. However, most of this radiated heat energy actually rises in the hot air, up and out of the house with the smoke. Following this cold air from out of doors must enter the house and be heated up somehow, usually by your central vacuum system.
These other options use heating and convection systems to operate at 50-80% energy efficiency, that is of the energy in the fuel that is burned more than half goes to heat up the air. Compare this to the 10% of wood burning fireplaces and the need for a more advanced system (in order actually save money) becomes starkly clear.
