You may want to consider this, I live in a double wide bought new 4 years ago. The heating bills were getting right up there when the lp gas price went nuts a couple years ago and decided I needed to get wood heat. Insurance told me too that wood stoves are a no no. However, a wood burning fireplace is just fine, won't even raise your rates. Its considered more for decoration and equity value than a heating source. Anyway, did some homework on high efficiency fireplaces and bought an Ultima made by BIS in Canada, through a local dealer. This is my second season and we heat with it pretty much 24/7 and keeps this place about 75-78 most of the time with ease, and no increase in my insurance at all. I burn about 7-8 face cord of oak during the heating season.
With my FIL's help, we did the prep work and the dealer came in and set it and ran all the venting for it then we did the stone and other finish work ourselves. Total cost was about $3500, and estimated value increase to the home was $9000 of equity.
Here is the maker of the stone, they are local to me but ship everywhere and were very reasonable. I think it cost me about $250 for the stone, mesh and mortar through them.
Hi peoples,
I have been reading and watching the news on that cold front that has been hitting the USA and other places these last few weeks, and I can but nothing else feel for all of you guys (ladies and gents!). I have seen and played with snow about 40 years ago, in a long trip to the Estrela the Serra (Mountain Star) about 700+ km from home then, back in my country of birth (Portugal).
In the 22 years living is Australia, 90% of the time I was living and working in the desert with temperatures reaching 55C, dropping to bellow 0C at night for some months of the years. No snow but that dreadful "frost" and strong winds...!
. Some years spend up in the tropics of the Northern Territory, hot and extremely humid (100% humidity in many days), some how a better weather than the desert one, for me, anyways...!
Hot weather seem to be what I liked the most, or the one I less suffer, never liked the cold and anything under 18C was getting cold for me...! As I grown older, I started to dislike the heat and started to enjoy milder temperatures, obviously after all those years expose to such extremes the body had enough of it so, when I retired from paid work all together, where 2 things that I missed the most, trees and a fireplace...!:redface:
As a kid, I would go around to neighbors with my axe on my shoulder, offering to split wood for their fireplaces, as my parents house was gas heated, one of the advantages of a more "upper class" status, in that traditional mentality...!. I didn't like it a bit so I spend more time at some friends houses where they, being of "lower class...!
" couldn't afford anything else but wood. God bless those "lower class" people, as my family would call, they were a lot more my people than my own blood were!
:biggrin:
All those "blisters" bursting with liquid, where quickly perforated through with a large needle and some cotton string, tied up and left there for further draining. Was not a lot more I could ask in a cold winter's day/night, then be seated in front of a open fireplace with a few dozen "chouricos" getting smoked cured up above, and a hand full of cured olives or dry figs, some home made "broa" dark bred and a fair size of red wine glass or a short glass with the "explosive" and hot "aguardent" firewater...!
While using my natural "draining liquid" to "coat" the bubbled blisters every nature would make the call, the healing process was extremely fast, and always effective...! Those were the days!
Moving to this State and area, I got back most of the very missed things that for nearly 20 years I could have, the four season's weather, the trees and plenty of them, grasses, mountains and valley's, and off-course, my fireplace, my wood chopping, olive trees, grape vines and pine forests...:biggrin:!
Not that I had my life very easy on the fireplace, as the home we were renting didn't have one, as the house was one of those "portable" 2 bedroom houses, without any plans for a fireplace inside so I had some work to do with the home owners, insurance and the expense which was decided that had to me all mine...!
. The conditions (owners agreement) were that, I would build it in such way that could the remove if necessary, have the installation certificate with the description of materials used and specifications as per the regulations, they would take care of the insurance, and that if at any time I or a decision was made for me to vacate the house (property) unless the added fireplace was asked to stay and be paid for all the costs by the home owner, I had to leave the place exactly how I found it (no whole in the ceiling, roof, floor and wall conditions, etc., etc.):redface:
One week later, the fireplace was on and full blast, as my wife Merissa, she seamed to have discover for the first time, the pleasures of a fireplace so, she just kept putting logs into it, that was no problem as the is a excellent wood splitter, she likes to do it and was no shortage of wood!
After 12 months of great enjoyment, the house owners decided to put the house for sale so we had to go, we couldn't never afford to buy it.
The 4 weeks we had notice, were short, and when I asked them if they wanted to keep the fireplace and get a high value for the house, they said" Oh no..., you can leave it if you want as you don't go to have the time to look for another place and remove all that "stuff" you done but we will not pay for anything, so is better to leave it and spend the time looking for a place to go to...!"
They had it all planned as I did a lot of other improvements in and outside, and they saw the opportunity to make good money out of 12 months of my work and money...!
Cutting already a long story short, I got mad, really mad so out of the 4 weeks they gave us, I sold all my firewood, got a neighbor to let me put my stuff in his large backyard, covered with tarpolens and spend most of that months removing/dismantling/destroying all the work we had done in and out of the house. The day of the inspection, return of the keys and get my $800 bond, paid cash and agreed to be returned the same way, they didn't gave us anything as they realize that we had worked night and day to bring the place back to its original condition, the best we could as the "jungle" and "dump" that front and backyards were like when we moved in, I just could put the jungle back, unfortunately...!
Well, the new fireplace including the insulated back wall and insulated floor I've made for it, were re-installed in the house that I'm now and since 2006. Again, an agreement was made between ourselves the owner and the Real State people, but this time and after I was presented with a 1 year lease only, I made the offer to the owner to leave the fireplace as is if they will give at least a 5 year lease. The Real State didn't like the idea as the rent was "locked" for the period but the owner and after we met at the house, she saw the extra value the house would have and also the way I was looking after her property, which she did not hesitate and instructed the Real State people to write a new lease agreement.:biggrin:
Is not long before those 5 years are over but, I would like to stay as long as we want to/can, and the property owner is well aware of it so, fingers cross...!
I apologize for my long story, my thoughts started wondering when Gary started this thread, and then when
mranum showed the pics of his fireplace construction, I couldn't stop myself but tell my fireplace story...!:wink:
Off-course, it did happen, and the pics demonstrate just that. The first lot of pics is from the first place I installed it, the second lot is my home now!
PS: I don't think that I will be running out of firewood timber here either, huh...???
:biggrin:
Cheers
George
