# Fireplace question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 22, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186 "2004-12-22T17:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186/21 "2004-12-23T19:58:40Z")
When in doubt, RTFM. I just went through the documents that I got when I bought the house and I can confirm that my fireplace is, in fact, wood burning. So over the next few days I’ll be enjoying the warming glow of the fireplaces warming glow. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186/22 "2004-12-23T20:42:03Z")
> [@adam yax](#): > > I think that somewhere this thread took a detour. I don’t want to burn wood, I want to burn a Duraflame. > > Also, why would the gas need to come out? Growing up we had wood burning fireplaces with gas in them. You are giving me a headache. 🙂 A duraflame is wood. It’s convenient wood, but it is wood, smashed together from smaller wood bits. A duraflame or newspapers…or oak, etc…it needs to burn in a chimney with a flue, so bad stuff goes out. Bad stuff = your death. Fumes of death must go up the flue. Why does the gas line issue need to be resolved? Because duraflames burn via lighting a match and then the whole fire/heat process thingy takes over (chemists!). If there is a gas line, there could be gas…and the line comes in from somewhere, and that hole is an issue. ---
**Author:** ![SavageNarce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@SavageNarce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SavageNarce)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186/23 "2004-12-24T13:48:43Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I am going to call massive bullshit on this one. My house was built in 1760 and has 5 fireplaces. They were the only source of heating for over 150 years and they easily replace the furnace with only a couple of fires. My inlaw’s farmhouse was built in 1790 and when it gets cool indoors when I am visiting, they ask me to fire up only one fireplace. The whole bottom floor is warm and sometimes even too hot after an hour. Sometimes I have to let the fire die down to let the house cool down to an comfortable temperature. This is in New Hampshire where the temperature drops below zero sometimes and is frozen for 4 solid months of the year. > > If you want to qualify that with “some fireplace designs” you might have a point but this is not even close to universally true. What do you think people heated with between the thousands of years that permanent homes were invented and outside fuel was piped in? Valid points, and yes, “some fireplace designs” are more efficient than others. But even the best open fireplace is far less efficient than your basic furnace, so when central heating became available, it caught on like wildfire (no pun). Heating occurs through three basic mechanisms: radiation, convection and conduction. Most open fireplaces can only radiate (although I have seen some with air ducts built in to the brick mantel and surround), and they don’t even radiate very well until the fire has been going long enough to heat the firebrick. I’ll bet your old farmhouse was also equipped with a massive kitchen stove (ours certainly was) that made a major contribution to the heating system because it added convective heating to the radiation from the firebox. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2004, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186/24 "2004-12-24T14:16:41Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I am going to call massive bullshit on this one. My house was built in 1760 and has 5 fireplaces. They were the only source of heating for over 150 years and they easily replace the furnace with only a couple of fires. Yeah, but in 1760, people still had bedwarmer pans to get the sheets warm enough to sleep in. And they probably had to break the ice on the water basin in order to shave in the morning. The point wasn’t that fireplaces can’t heat a house – it’s just that they’re not very good at it compared to say, a wood stove or a gas furnace. A ton of heat goes up the flue. Anecdotal evidence to counter yours – my brother was living in a turn-of-the-century house up in Minnesota whose climate rivals that of New Hampshire. Not a fireplace in the house, and no sign that there ever was one. Once furnaces came into vogue, people dropped fireplaces like, well, like something hot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fireplace-question/281186.md?page=1)