On Sun, 27 Dec 2020 08:29:53 -0500, Gary wrote:

> On 12/26/2020 10:22 PM, Master Bruce wrote:
>> On Sat, 26 Dec 2020 22:11:13 -0500, Dave Smith
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> On 2020-12-26 9:53 p.m., Bob wrote:
>>>>>
>>>> When I was younger heating with wood was good exercise and using the
>>>> stove to cook at times was fun. Famil room was always nice and warm too.
>>>> Not sure how much money I actually saved but at some point I found it
>>>> easier to write checks for oil than split and haul wood.
>>>
>>> Not to mention the problem of most fireplaces sucking all that warm air
>>> out of the rest of the house to feed the fire.
>>
>> So fireplaces make the room colder instead of warmer. Damn, I should
>> have known!
>
> A plain fireplace is pretty but quite inefficient for heating. Most of
> the heat goes right up the chimney.
>
> A free standing wood stove does a much better job for heating.

They used to advertise a "Physicist"s firegrate" in Scientific American. It
held the logs to create black box readiation.