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How to Heat Your Home Using Your Fireplace

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Colder weather has been teasing us for weeks now. This won’t always be the case, bone chilling weather is right around the corner. If you have a wood burning or pellet stove, fireplace or insert, you will probably try to assist or even replace your home heating by using your hearth appliance. Heating your house using your fireplace is pretty simple.

Heating your home using your fireplace starts with air flow. There are many ways to create airflow in your home. Having your fireplace located on the main floor in a centralized location optimizes heat. Hot air rises, but sometimes it needs a little bit of help. 

Regency Pro-Series F3500

Get It Moving

If you have a forced air heating and cooling system, turn on the fan and use it to circulate the air that is created by your fireplace. This works best in a more open concept space and smaller homes where heat loss to the vents isn’t noticeable. If you have a ceiling fan, reversing it so that the air is being pulled up is another way to circulate heat. This works well if the fireplace is in a common area. 

What do you do if you don’t have a forced air system to move the air around? There are several fan options that you can use, including fans that sit in the upper corner of doors, even a traditional box fan would work. Place the box fan on low facing into the space where your fireplace is, blowing the cool air at the unit. This will cause convection reaction and the hot air will be forced away from the burning unit. If in a small room, the hot air will be moving out the door into larger spaces in no time. 

Minor Modification 

If you are still not getting the heat that you want, you may think about some minor renovations. Adding a pass through vent over the burning until, into the room above is a simple modification. This will allow the heat produced by your fireplace to simply flow upwards. In a ranch style house, adding transoms over the doors, will allow for increased airflow. Doing this in conjunction with using ceiling fans or the home’s venting system will make for a nice and warm home. Evening better, you will add more light to your beautiful home if you choose this option. 

To check on the effectiveness of moving hot air from one space to another, try taping a streamer to the door frame. If it’s moving, you have airflow. If not, other solutions may be necessary. Either way, it is possible to heat your home by moving hot air generated by a using your fireplace.