Ayumi and Dan's Old House: Kitchen Update 2: Turn up the Heat

Part of kitchen renovation involved getting a new source of heat for the space. Our reasons for splurging on a gas fireplace are threefold:

1) Dan’s been wanting one – I thought, impractically – since we moved up here. I dismissed his ramblings as the yearnings of a dreamer stuck in the north and perpetually cold, but nothing to give any real thought to. I mean, we’re in Puritan country here – no money in this house for such luxuries! And then we built that firepit in the backyard, and we agreed that it would scratch any fire itches we might have (and cheaply, too). Nevertheless, between the two of us, Dan’s the penny pincher (hmm, is that true?) so usually if he wants to spend more money, I’m game (again, not sure if that's entirely true).

2) The living room and kitchen originally had 2 huge radiators. They were both located in prime locations, right where cabinets would go. I wanted to move them, and toyed with placing one in the middle of the room, directly next to the kitchen island. My plumber, without looking at them or the space, approximated 1000$ JUST to move them (later, when he saw it, the estimate came in a little lower at 600$). My jaw dropped in shock: 600$ to move these huge, inconvenient, space-consuming monoliths?! 600$ for a non-ideal, rather clunky and un-elegant solution…? That was the first time I seriously ventured the topic of an alternative heat source with Dan.

These two monsters

That's the best I could think up

3) It would be really nice to have the room we expect to spend the most time in (kitchen/living) be comfortable, if not toasty warm, without having to heat the entire mansion we live in (much too big for the two of us) off our steam radiators off our OIL-burning furnace ($$$$). Heating that somewhat isolated area is doable, so now – what type of fuel?

wood burning is too much work: get wood delivered, stack up wood (where?), bring wood into house, tend to fire, clean up ash. Also, we couldn’t have a wood-burning stove on a thermostat to heat the room while we’re gone so the kitchen pipes don’t freeze.

electric heat: can’t do under floor heating with wood floors; too big a space and too cold for electric baseboard heat (from what I can tell, electric baseboard heat can supply enough heat in places like Florida). Also, electric heat is quite inefficient, I think, not from the baseboard device itself, but the production of electricity at the power plant is where the inefficiency lies.

pellet stove: didn’t consider it for some reason at the time because it seemed an awful lot like a wood stove, but talking to some people since then, and reading about it, looks like it could’ve been a decent option. Pellets are small dense pieces of scrap wood that looks like rabbit food, and they can be automatically fed into a stove, which means it can be connected to a thermostat. They burn cleanly and slowly and are renewable. Added bonus of not having to deal with a gas line and the risks of gas leaks/explosions.

oil: obviously, out of the question.

So Dan and I headed to a stove store Home Comfort Warehouse in White River Junction and looked at some gas stoves. I thought they looked nice and was leaning in this direction, but Dan wasn’t sold on the traditional, old-fashioned (in his opinion) look of it, so he somehow convinced me that the extra cost and work of a built-in fireplace would be worth the value its presence adds. We visited the same store a few days later, bought a fireplace. After carpenter Dan closed off the door from the living room into the first floor bathroom and built a level platform for the fireplace, here we are today, a month since buying it, finally heating our kitchen. Not a moment too soon either, since it snowed and hailed yesterday during installation; not a lot, but still.