The Season’s First Fire

We woke up to temperatures in the low 30’s Friday morning with a predicted high in the 40’s. We even have a prediction of a little snow tomorrow and high in the upper 30’s. Sounds like it’s cool enough to crank up the fireplace. We have a fireplace upstairs which we only use for special occasions and one in the downstairs den room with an insert, which we actually use to get some heat from. After taking Alex to school, I fired up the lower unit and plan to keep it going for the next several days while it’s cool. I really like a nice fire and have lot’s of wood I need to use to make room for a big oak log that’s about to be cut up and split. I’m using some oak a little pile of sycamore from a limb that broke off in the spring. It doesn’t produce a high heat, but it does burn well and makes a pretty fire. Here's a shot with the doors open.


Then with the doors closed and the blower on, it raised the room temperature from 62 to 70 in a couple of hours - I was actually a little too warm.


Here's a shot from a little further back - that's the sofa arm in the lower right.


In an effort to get some benefit for the remainder of the house, I’ve replaced a few of the drop ceiling tiles with an open plastic grid. This allows the heat to go into the area between floors and warm the upstairs floors a little.