[subi-crosser]

Originally Posted by Hop

I've got a couple of questions. I've got an old (not sure how old) wood insert that has a fan and cooks me out of the house when I use it.

Can you get quieter fans for them? Mine sounds like a tank.

How can you set it up so that is burns slow over night? I close the bottom dampers and the flue but the fire is still out or just about out by morning. Someone talked about 'banking' the fire. What does that mean?

I put a flatscreen tv over the fireplace this summer. Nice :-) Should I go out and buy a thermometer and put it where the tv is to determine if it's too hot? And what would be too hot?

Should I pull the thing out yearly to clean? It weighs a ton and it doesn't look like an easy job. I've been using it for 10 years now and haven't pulled it out yet. I do stick my hand up through the flue damper and feel around to see if it's dirty but haven't found much debris. I clean my chimney twice a year but have yet to see any real accumulation of soot there even though I burn just about any kind of wood that I can get my hands on.

Has anybody got a cheap wood splitter that they want to get rid of?

My wife and I use the fireplace a lot. We keep the house at about 85 all winter long and my elec bill usually tops out at about $120 around Christmas time because the wife likes to cook a gazillion pies.

I told her that we'll burn until we run out of free wood and then we'll switch to gas. I'm on an acre lot with a ton of trees. Ten years later and I still have more trees than I know what to do with and I've prob got about 4 cords of wood split and stacked and another 2 cords waiting to be split. I have access to 6 large dropped oak trees but don't have anywhere to store them.

The wife is ready to switch over to gas because she's tired of the mess from carrying the wood in and the dust from carrying out the ashes. But I still like the price.

Is there a damper on the top that you can throttle back? Of not, can you put one on it?

A slower burn will make the wood last longer but if you burn it too slow, it causes build up inside your pipes/flew and increases your chance of fire.

A hotter fire keeps your flew cleaner, since the tars are consumed.