And We Have Fire

The temps dropped from their ridiculously wonderful highs to seasonally appropriate November chill. We had snow this weekend and with the snow..... fire! After some pretty laborious work, Cam got the chimney liner installed and the wood burning insert all hooked up and ready to go. It was a great weekend for burning wood.

The insert is now "seasoned" which means that the paint has been heated to the appropriate temp several times in order to properly harden it for it's role of heat resistance. This thing puts out some serious heat! It's almost intolerable to be in the room unless you strip down to shorts and a tank top. We have a cold air return in the room but there is a chair in front of it. We thought that shouldn't matter much but it seems to be creating a problem for circulating the heat.

The fireplace is on the lower level of our house and we need to get the heat upstairs so we're trying to think of different ways to accomplish that and maintain the family room as a functional room and not the roasting room! we're considering one of those cute little mini ceiling fans at the top of the stairway to suck some of the hot air up but aren't sure we want to spend the cash on it. Something will need to be done if we're going to use this thing for supplemental heat this winter.