Direct Vent Fireplace - Dumb or Awesome?

Whats the difference between a traditional fireplace with a firebox and chimney and a direct vent fireplace? Which is better for energy efficiency?
A traditional fireplace brings memories of warmth and comfort. They draw air through the house into the firebox, burns wood fuel, and the smoke is exhausted through the chimney. This process works great in drafty old homes where the fireplace could get enough fresh air through the cracks and gaps in the walls, windows and doors. However, as we have become more conscious of energy consumption and the deleterious effects of air leakage throughout our building assemblies, we have begun to build our homes tighter and tighter. A well built house that meets today's codes will not be able to draw enough air through the tight air envelope to burn correctly. The result is a poor performing fireplace that draws air down the chimney and fills the house with smoke and soot.
Is there a solution? Yes! A direct vent or sealed combustion fireplace brings its combustion air from the outside through a coaxial pipe, burns the fuel in a sealed chamber (natural gas or propane usually, although there are some European stoves that burn pellets and wood) and then exhausts the smoke back through the inside of the coaxial pipe to the outside. This process completely seals the combustion process from the air inside the house, alowing the fire to heat the space, but not have any contamination from smoke and carbon monoxide.
The biggest draw back to these fireplaces in the US is the fake log look (especially in the cheaper models) and the protective screen across the screen to protect kids from burning their hands. Come on, if your kid doesn't know fire is hot, may be getting burned from a fake fireplace will do them some good. But I digress...
What do you think? Do you like this type of fireplace or would you rather open a window of have makeup air system for a real fireplace?

[timvatter]

I built my house in 1995 and have a fireplace with a direct Side vent to draw fresh air in. With the fire going and the main flue open then open the side vent. With the glass doors closed it draws fresh air from the side vent that is inside the fire place to a vent outside. Similar to a clothes drier vent. Or think of it as a inlet flue that you can open and close.

[tjrooger]

In my former house (Elgin TX) the "chimney" was a 5'x3' stick frame wrapped in Hardy with a traditional double wall flue pipe. The firebox was vented to the outdoor air. For the times when we weren't doing a fire, I made 2" thick foam board insulation plug for the face of the fireplace. My wife thought it was ugly so she found a blanket/sheet thingy with a fireplace design on it to cover the plug.

[ducagace]

The best options : No fireplace, no woodstove. Build so much efficient home that you heat it only with a candle. And as you were saying Jordan, get a firepit if you want a fire. Problem solve


As always, thank you Jordan for sharing this information. Gratefulness

[MASkvarla]

I have a Stuv zero clearance wood stove installed in a fireplace like assembly. Works great and has the aesthetic.

[BiggMo]

Jorden, some of the modern wood-stoves and soapstone heaters have a sealed door and can be installed to draw combustion air from the exterior.

[debrajfrye]

We are getting ready to install a zero clearance wood burning fireplace. It will be delivered tomorrow. We do not have a chimney. We will be venting it straight up through the ceiling, then through the attic, and out the roof. We've never installed one before, but my husband is smart so I know we'll figure it out as we go. So excited!

[dcmsr]

Just bought a tri level house (Built in 1975) with wood burning fireplace on lower level couldn't find a handle in the flue to open chimney, of course I'll have to wait for chimney inspection and their advice. I hope I can keep it in it's natural brick glory. I want it to be the centerpiece of the room

[damonlee]

Renaissance and Stuv both make direct vent wood-burning fireplaces based on the principles of the European wood stoves you saw. They have “guillotine” glass doors that slide up and down inside the chase to allow access to the firebox.

[boxerfencer]

Can I retrofit that flue into a double combustion woodstove?

Edit:
The flue I have already has an inner and outer tube, with fiberglass insulation between the two to prevent irradiating excessive heat to my second floor and roofing structures.

I suppose I could take the insulation out to create an external inflow of air, and that might work, as just air will act as an insulator, especially with fresh cold air coming down the flue from the outside.

The only two issues I see is the potential to create more creosote, as any unburned gasses will condense upon contacting a an inner tube made colder by a cold inflow.

But that might be offset by the fact that the fire might burn cleaner with a steady inflow of air, anyway.

The other issue might be one of structural integrity as the inner tube won't have anything to hold it in place. I don't know how much of an issue of this could be, but I imagine it would be easy enough to brace with some heat resistant screws and bolts, or perhaps some generous amount of flue silicon in key places on both ends of each section.

Just some thoughts. Has anyone done this?

[JustinKuntz]

In our last remodel we installed a large flush wood insert with Hybrid-Fyre technology. Travis Industries is the company behind it. We loved it. The house was a two story 2500 sqft vaulted mid century house and it almost would heat the entire home with our central air fan circulating.

[btownb]

In California, because of the fire code you can't build a wood burning fireplace... so we can only do fake. This looks perfect for us!

[bulatdavlet]

We work on extraction all heat from fire, smoke (burning gases). We planning in take air from insulated vent channel from basement or under slab foundation. All firing place and chimney is water heat exchanger.

[titus]

We had a brick fireplace in my parents house. Never worked well as a real fireplace, as most do. It is so hard to get a well designed firebox. Anyway, we put in a gas kit. And you know what, with a nice firescreen in front, no one was fooled, but it really did have a great ambiance at holidays. It was so easy to operate and everything stayed clean. Even though it wasn't the greatest it did the job and we loved it for many years.



Fast forward to now, my parents have a new home and they installed a rumford firebox which not only is a great looking real fireplace, it throws a TON of heat. But you have to crack a window for it to work. But the heat gain is so high it almost makes up for it.



I see no problem with the "fake" fireplace for ambiance. If you want heat, get a woodstove. They work way better than any open fireplace for that. It just isn't worth the trouble of a real fireplace for that ambiance a few times a year.

[maakjar]

Awesome. Can’t wait to see the finished product

[GuitarMan]

Well said, I too prefer real fireplaces but they're hard to do right in a modern home. My preferred approach would probably be a three season room sealed off from the rest of the house, basically an enclosed patio.

[tomfool]

Mass heaters tick a lot of boxes - a clean hot burn using dry wood with lots of air, and most of the heat is transferred to the mass of the heater to be emmitted gently into the room for hours after the fire has gone out. You can rig them to draw air from outside but you dont have to because the fire only pulls air into the room while it's burning. Very little CO or soot, very fuel efficient and all the fun of fire in the home.

[EPICSOUNDTRAX]

I love firewood stoves but as a musician, they are horrible to my acoustic instrument piano, double bass, guitars because I cannot control the heat and the air becomes very dry really fast.
I already have a double bass exploding thanks to dry air, so now we have Napoleon propane stove and you can control the temperature with remote control. I set it up not too high so the temperature is ok and the humidity in the air enough to keep the instruments safe.

[jasonroets]

When I first met Matt at IBS he asked if I had any questions for him. I said yes you had a video on bad products and one was zero clearance gas fireplaces, and the comments blew up about that. What should you use? He said he hates the thermal wound and getting dinged on the blower door test. Yet unfortunately for now it is the best option for a fireplace.

[DigitalBenny]

I have window sills.
I have door sills.
You could say that my house is...
SILLED up 😏😏😏

[JM-bzqb]

hahaha ... from one pyro maniac to another, your channel is officially my favorite im about to build a house in Magnolia and been struggling on what to do about the fireplace but its settled now after watching this .... the real deal on the back porch... done.