Eco-friendly Fireplaces: A Green, Fuzzy Fireplace
(Page 2 of 3)
January/February 2007
By Carol Venolia
A hearth by any other name…
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Now I'm living in a city where the houses are so close together that wood smoke is a significant cause of winter air pollution. So what are my options? I could close up the flue and turn the fireplace into a symbolic focal point, similar to what architect Kathy Rogers of Sogno Design Group did when she remodeled a house in Kensington, California. The owners wanted to replace a huge, inefficient brick fireplace that dominated the living room with an efficient, clean-burning woodstove in their basement family room, adding an open interior stairway that would allow warm air to rise into the main house.
Rogers removed the original fireplace, but a large chase for the basement woodstove needed to rise up through the living area, creating a new design challenge. "We didn't want to take up space by thickening the wall or creating an ugly chase for the flue," Rogers says. "Instead, we essentially created a beautiful chase-something similar to the original fireplace. We designed a structure that would both contain the flue and act as a symbolic hearth." While Rogers' hearth doesn't actually function as a fireplace, it often displays a sculpture or candelabra. A recycled-copper "firebox" and a surround of recycled-glass tiles complete the feeling of a well-crafted gathering point.
Warm fuzzies
I love Rogers' solution, and I can almost imagine turning my own fireplace into a big, beautiful candleholder. Then again, maybe I want the full blaze. Architect and consultant Terry Cline notes there's something primal about warmth that radiates from a single source-and in Massachusetts, where he lives, that kind of heat means a lot in winter. "We typically refer to a furnace as 'central heating,' but it doesn't feel central at all; it's just uniform monotony," Cline says. "Radiant heat from a central source such as a wood stove maximizes the sense of being cocooned and sheltered from the cold."
I could just retrofit my fireplace with glass doors and outside combustion air to cut down on the amount of air that's sucked out of the house and up the flue. I'm more likely to go with a woodstove insert that burns wood and produces heat more efficiently. And with the recent addition of catalytic converters, the flue gases are fairly clean. (See "Heating Your Home with Wood," page 80.)