How to Heat Your Cottage with a Fireplace
If you’re lucky enough to have access to a cottage, you’ve probably considered using it year round—not only during the warm summer months. Most Canadians think of cottage time as roughing it (at least compared to the amenities we have in our year-round homes), but when looking to expand your usage to the winter, the heating you don’t notice is missing in the summer becomes a problem.
Utilizing a fireplace to supplement your cottage baseboard heaters during fall and winter is a nice, rustic and low cost way to make it liveable during the colder months.
Air Flow
The most important thing to consider when relying more on your fireplace to heat your cottage is air flow—does the layout and venting in your cottage provide the ideal circumstances to circulate the warm air around the full living space?
The most ideal set up is to locate your fireplace on the main floor, in the most central location possible. In a smaller cottage, ensuring you have an efficient fireplace and using high quality fuel might be enough to keep your space comfortable without even turning on the baseboard heaters.
If you have a larger space, installing fans to direct air into further reaching corners of the cottage is an inexpensive way to increase impact of your fireplace.
How to Test for Air Flow
If you’re unsure how well air flows throughout the rooms of your cottage, you can test by taping a piece of toilet paper to the door frame of each room. In doing this, you can test different positions for fans and watch to see if you’re circulating air into all major living spaces.
Minor Renovations
If the layout of your cottage makes it difficult to direct warm air through the different rooms, adding some pass through vents to surrounding rooms from the room that contains the fireplace could increase the reach of the heat your fireplace is producing, limiting the need for baseboard heating.
Get a Quote for a New, Efficient Fireplace
Whether you’re interested in a gas or pellet stove, a new efficient fireplace insert, or need a new installation fireplace, Stamford Fireplaces can provide a wide array of options. Contact us now to explore your options, and to get an estimate.
