When choosing the location of your fireplace or wood stove (also called siting) it is important to take into account the layout of your house and your lifestyle - if your house is an open plan type, then it will be easier to heat your home with a wood stove or fireplace, simply by locating it in a central area on the main floor of your home. However, if your home is compartmentalized, as is more traditional in North American buildings, you will need to ask yourself more questions. You will need to figure out where you actually spend the most time, because you'll want your wood stove or fireplace to be the centerpiece of a room. Since wood burning stoves and fireplaces are rarely sufficient to heat the whole house, you will want to site them such that you can take advantage of their heat as much as possible. This allows you to take advantage of a technique called zone heating. If you are cozy and warm in a room with a fire-source, you can heat only that room, allowing the rest of the house to remain at a much lower temperature. By using the zone heating technique, you can dramatically reduce your energy use without sacrificing your way of life - which translates into big savings on your fuel bill at the end of the month without having to spend all of your time in a sweater or blanket.
There are other reasons to site your stove or fireplace in a central, high-traffic location, such as aesthetics. If you are spending ,000 or more on a fireplace or wood stove, you likely want visitors to see it, to appreciate its warmth and beauty, and you yourself will want to be around it to see the dancing flames and enjoy the warmth of the wood stove, gas stove, wood burning fireplace or gas fireplace. Wherever you decide to place your new gas or wood burning stove or fireplace, be sure to face it towards the area of the room where you are most likely to be sitting or standing, as this allows you to take advantage of the radiant heat from the fireplace or wood or gas stove as well as the convective heat (warmed air) blown around by fans or blowers.
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