Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Aug 02, 2015 10:08 am Has anyone put a open wood fireplace in the house they built? What were the costs like? Was it a hard thing to add into the build? We will have ducted gas heating but like the idea of having an open wood fire place in one of our lounges. Re: Open wood fireplace 2Aug 02, 2015 5:08 pm A traditional open fire leaks a lot of heat up the chimney. Today's wood heaters must comply with Australian Standards for emissions and safety. Therefore most Australian wood fires consist of a manufactured steel box that may be free standing or built into a fireplace. These heaters include a damper to prevent heat loss from the room when the heater is not in use and steel baffles to capture as much heat as possible before it goes p the flue. They are connected to a double of triple skinned steel flue to ensure fumes do not find their way into the house and to protect roof timbers from catching alight. There is a wood heater called "Firefox" that can be operated as on open fire but this mode of operation would require ember screens to be in place. Re: Open wood fireplace 3Aug 02, 2015 7:37 pm The house we are building is a steel framed one and the purpose of the fireplace wouldn't be for heating but rather atmosphere and cooking marshmallows etc ![]() Re: Open wood fireplace 4Feb 17, 2016 9:37 am Actually I built a proper functioning fireplace, they are pretty easy to build if you have the proper details. On a steel framed house (I assume raft/flat slab?) did you make provisions for the mass concrete pad footings required to support the weight? Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: Open wood fireplace 5Feb 17, 2016 1:23 pm We decided we couldn't afford the cost at this time, maybe in the future if we really feel the need. Re: Open wood fireplace 7May 26, 2024 11:36 am I have had a free standing wood heater in my home for the past 25 years. It didn't get used much at all ( maybe only 20 times per year) for the initial 20 years as we had gas ducted heating as well, and then only during the evenings. Upon retirement a few years ago I decided to start using the wood heater more and more as I was home during the day and the price of gas is through the roof. The condition of the flue has been worrying me for the past few years,but my inability to now climb up on the roof and sweep the flue had led me to be lax in this maintenance. Having been a carpenter and builder all my life and used to doing everything myself and having installed this heater with the plumber when the roof (iron) was being put on during the build of the house, I knew it was installed correctly. Reading that flues should be cleaned annually finally made me bite the bullet and employ a chimney sweep to clean the flue. To my surprise, he did it from underneath by simply removing the baffle plate and feeding the brush up from below. Dumb me I thought,I could have done that and saved myself $240. All in all he got about 1/4 a cup of fine dust out of the 6m long flue pipe. Being a perfectionist as I am, I was not happy with this result and more to the point that he only fed the brush up to the top and then down again with no up and down scrubbing action I wasn't satisfied he had cleaned it thoroughly, combined with the minor amount of dust that came out. Upon his departure, I decided to have a look up the flue pipe myself. I removed the baffle plate and with a mirror and torch I could see right up the chimney. To my surprise it was spotless, I could see each join in the flue sections and still no build up of tar or creosote. I suppose all this rambling is only to advise others that, despite all the warnings of potential flue fires, it is easy to check with a mirror and torch, and easy to clean from inside without having to climb on the roof, plus all in all,I recon I have had at least 600 burns in this wood heater and by the amount of soot removed I think I could have gone another 600 without any concerns. This is by no means saying you should neglect maintenance of your flue as the type of wood you burn can also reflect the amount of build up, but merely to state the way you can check it yourself and then clean it yourself. Hi all, My first post, we are building a house and can’t decide the layout of the lounge room. We have a large N/W facing window and are wanting to have a wood slow… 0 14457 No the fireplace doesn’t work. It’s been enclosed. I’m not sure what was removed, as it was done quite some time ago - well before what I can see with photos online… 2 12162 I would probably render it and then paint it as per your other advice, or gyrpock over the top. 1 4369 ![]() |