Soapstone Fireplace

[NJCher]

Anybody here have a soapstone fireplace or one that is lined with soapstone?

I have a fireplace and am thinking of having it lined with soapstone.




Cher

[Canuckistanian]

1. What's the advantage?

Are there some properties to soapstone that make it hold heat?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Yes

It holds heat a long time. Soapstone stoves have been used in Europe for a long time.

[Warpy]

7. It's too expensive for a fireplace liner

because even that retained heat will mostly exit up the chimney. A better idea is to invest the money you were going to spend on a liner on a good quality soapstone woodstove, instead.

Bag the fireplace. It's a wood waster.

However, if you're insisting on the herbal romance of a fireplace, a better idea is to rebuild it as a heatolator fireplace and seal the front with a reasonably tight glass screen with an adjustable air intake. That will prevent all the heat in your house from being sucked up the chimney along with the heat from the fire. Heat from a fireplace is mostly radiant heat and fireplaces waste a whole lot more than they give.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I believe my doctor's is lined with the stuff

It has great heat retention properties. She has a small stove but a big house and it keeps everything warm. But if you're lining a fireplace, get an expert to make sure that the flues are set up so that the heat you're gaining goes into the house and not up the chimney.

[dcfirefighter]

4. Woodburning

I've got no problem with it. Some people do, not me, especially for home heating.

Tulikivi
Masonry Heater Association
Jotul Stoves

[Treclo]

6. Great Masonry Stove site!

I hope to build one down the road, but hadn't found this site yet. Thanks!

[The River]

5. High Thermal Capacitance

Low thermal conductivity.
Line the outside, not the inside.
The stored heat energy will then be released into the house,
not back into the interior of the fireplace. (and up the flue)
The more soapstone mass you have, the more heat it can store.

[NJCher]

8. might go with a stove

Thanks, everybody. This helps a lot, and that masonry site posted by dcfirefighter might lead to a certified professional with whom I can confer.

My interest in a soapstone fireplace or stove came about when my parents built a fireplace in a new addition to their home. Their fireplace is a state of the art but not soapstone, unfortunately. Where they live, they could not get anyone who knew anything about it to help them. Here in NJ, however, I see a certified mason/contractor not far from me.

It would probably be cheaper to go with the stove. Although esthetics are important to me, my purpose in doing this is strictly because of the fact that I have natural gas. Reading threads here, we all know what that situation is. Here's the soapstone stove fireplace URL I've been looking at:

http://www.woodstove.com/pages/vr360.html

Here's a page with prices:

http://www.woodstove.com/pages/sale.html

I could certainly live with one of these. They are a couple thousand and then, of course, there's installation.

My gas bills this winter were something like $500 a month and I've done all the weatherproofing I can do. I've had those tests where they come in with the machine and measure how much is going out of the home and they say my place is tight as can be, even though it is a 185-year old home. I have new windows, too.

In addition, I know that for the time being, I can get all the free wood I want. In fact there are a dozen downed trees between me and the neighbors that need to be cleaned up. Everytime I turn around, I see wood being put out at the curb and when I go to the recycling center, there is plenty of it being chipped just to get rid of it. Sad.

I was complaining about my heating bills to a friend and she told me her brother put in a wood stove and set himself up with the contacts through tree-cutting companies and he gets all the free wood he wants. She said he doesn't pay anything for heat.

I know I would have to incur the cost of getting a gas-powered chainsaw and also do a lot of work. The work doesn't bother me; in fact, that's why I bought my property--so I could do yard work for exercise.

As far as renewability of wood goes, there's a type of fast-growing willow that can be grown for firewood--in case everybody else resorts to this, too. I have a lot of property on which to grow it. I read about this in the Solviva book. Google Solviva if you're interested in knowing more about that.

Re pollution, if it's a quick-burning fire, there is minimal pollution put out. It's the long-smoldering fires that put out the pollution. They talk about that on some of the pages listed here--the masonry association one, I believe.




Cher

[jpak]

9. Ever thought of pellet stove fireplace inserts????

They allow to view the fire (lets you keep the fireplace).

They have automatic pellet feeders (no tending) and can heat your house all day unattended - and many have battery back-up systems to operate them during blackouts.

They don't require "redoing" the chimney (extremely efficient, virtually no creosote).

There are a lot of models to choose from.

but then again - soapstone wood stoves are beautiful and most (if not all) are EPA certified...(they burn stick wood)

:)

[Kolesar]

10. Do use "sealed combustion" like Warpy hinted at in #7

that would be a separate air duct into the stove, so you are not sucking room air up the stack. It is hinted at on the bottom of this page http://www.woodstove.com/pages/installation.html

I really cannot comment on the relative pollution of a wood stove. Never looked into it

[skids]

11. Another such trick is tubes of glauber's salt solution.

It undergoes a phase change in the 30-degree celcius range and thus stores a large
amount of heat as chemical energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate

Apparently the tubes do go bad after a few years or so as structured crystals form up -- but they could be easily refurbed. A clever enough lay-chemist might figure out how to prevent that.