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mindwaves · Dec 4, 2012, 11:44 PM

I am looking to buy a house in the SoCal area. It doesn't get too cold here and more often than not, is hot rather than cold. Having a fireplace is almost completely useless and almost entirely just for decorative reasons.

I find when looking at houses on redfin.com that every house I am considering comes with a fireplace. I find that a fireplace is a waste of space and occupies valuable TV space. For example, the fireplace is often where the TV should be, making those who want a TV in that general area to position the TV at some odd angle around the fireplace or position the (flat screen) TV above the fireplace. That is just stupid to me. Why would I want to stretch my neck to watch TV?

I'm thinking of buying a house with a fireplace and destroying the mantle and surrounding brickwork and put up a faux wall over the fireplace (but not fill in the fireplace). Thoughts?

Spheric Harlot · Dec 5, 2012, 12:14 AM

You'd rather stare at a tv than at a fireplace?

You people have some ****ed-up priorities.

mindwaves · Dec 5, 2012, 12:52 AM

Well, I prioritize functionality over aesthetics. I need a room to be functional, and placing a TV at an odd angle and placing the TV over the fireplace is not functional. Since a fireplace, in my opinion will never be used by me (i.e., not functional), I want to get rid of it.

I actually don't watch much TV at all. Just a few hours a month at the most, but that still beats how many times I will ever use a fireplace (0 times a year). Ideally, I would like to build some sort of customized entertainment center starting from one wall to another wall with no top part, kind of what you would see in a Asian entertainment center. With a fireplace blocking the wall, this would not be possible.

Something like this, but wall to wall (and I don't want to mount my TV, just place it on the entertainment center/stand).
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Spheric Harlot · Dec 5, 2012, 12:58 AM

Fireplaces are the epitome of cozy to me. Hypnotic.

Of course, we have winter here.

andi*pandi · Dec 5, 2012, 03:08 AM

I don't use the fireplace much, but I'm glad we have it. Very koozie, I mean cozy.

We put our TV in a different room than the fireplace and didn't have to deal with it, but I agree a tv on the mantel is the wrong viewing angle.

You'd be wrecking property values if you destroy it, but you could do the typical Trading Spaces "cover the fireplace" surround install.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 5, 2012, 04:17 AM

You can lower the mantle, depending on what it is. Got a pic? Some friends of mine did that themselves recently, and it was only a matter of a couple weekends, including tile (and they are not especially handy or anything).

In my area of town the houses are very old, so almost all of them have the fireplace as the centre of each room - so lots of people put their TVs above them, and for the most part I agree that they're too high and it's awkward to watch. I've got my TV above the fireplace as well - but the mantle is fairly low as large fireplaces go. The bottom on the TV is about 4'8" high. That's the absolute highest I would go, and we have low, modern furniture, but I've been happily surprised that it is not awkward at all.

Of course, I'm not sure if the heat from a working fireplace would affect the TV if it's directly above it. My fireplaces are all built for coal and not wood, and are not used (it's pretty time-consuming and expensive to switch). I'm trying to figure out how to get a pellet stove inserted, but that's another story.

The Final Dakar · Dec 5, 2012, 05:41 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

You'd rather stare at a tv than at a fireplace?
You people have some ****ed-up priorities.

Piece of equipment that gets used almost everyday (and by everyone) versus home addition that is a pain in the ass and gets used a third of the year at most? I can' t imagine who would think that'd be ****ed up priorities other than holier-than-thou tv non-watchers.

ort888 · Dec 5, 2012, 06:06 AM

We just split the difference by lighting our TV on fire.

The Final Dakar · Dec 5, 2012, 06:08 AM

Originally Posted by ort888

We just split the difference by lighting our TV on fire.

It's more realistic than those yule log DVDs.

Spheric Harlot · Dec 5, 2012, 06:26 AM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

You'd rather stare at a tv than at a fireplace?
You people have some ****ed-up priorities.

Piece of equipment that gets used almost everyday (and by everyone) versus home addition that is a pain in the ass and gets used a third of the year at most? I can' t imagine who would think that'd be ****ed up priorities other than holier-than-thou tv non-watchers.

Phileas · Dec 5, 2012, 06:27 AM

We just got rid of our TV. Waste of space, waste of time, waste of energy.

The fireplace is in use almost every single day, from November to April.

The Final Dakar · Dec 5, 2012, 06:32 AM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Did I misread some sarcasm?

Originally Posted by Phileas

We just got rid of our TV. Waste of space, waste of time, waste of energy.

Oh c'mon, do tell.

Phileas · Dec 5, 2012, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Oh c'mon, do tell.

Works for us. Didn't say it has to work for anybody else.

My wife and I one day talked about the fact that the big TV in the living room (next to the fireplace) had not been used for ages. So we decided to get rid of it.

Probably helped by the fact that we've been living without cable for years. Also, there are other screens in our house, obviously. iPads, laptops, etc.

The Final Dakar · Dec 5, 2012, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by Phileas

Works for us. Didn't say it has to work for anybody else.
My wife and I one day talked about the fact that the big TV in the living room (next to the fireplace) had not been used for ages. So we decided to get rid of it.
Probably helped by the fact that we've been living without cable for years. Also, there are other screens in our house, obviously. iPads, laptops, etc.

Well, that's what I'm getting at. Do you guys not watch TV or movies or do you just do it somewhere else?

(I don't have cable either. Still use the TV near daily)

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 5, 2012, 07:55 AM

I also do not have cable. I love movie nights, though.

knifecarrier2 · Dec 5, 2012, 09:21 AM

I have no TV. I have a 39" monitor though.

andi*pandi · Dec 5, 2012, 12:19 PM

Watching TV or a movie on an iPad is fine in the car, or a plane, and on the couch is better than sitting at the computer, but can't be compared to an actual tv.

The kids are wrangling for another tv in the house, and I say no to that though.

Eug · Dec 5, 2012, 12:53 PM

In a small room, I find that a conventional fireplace with mantel can be a big waste of space. In fact, if you want a home theatre system there, having a fireplace like that can make things just awkward, because the fireplace is often placed as the centre piece of the room. That means if you want a TV in a central location, it will either have to go in front of or near the fireplace, or you'll have to reconfigure the room completely.

However, in a large home with large rooms, it can be much simpler to organize rooms to accommodate both. I personally like fireplaces, and I'm glad to have more than one in my current home. My living room is very large, so I have a home theatre hutch facing the couch, and a wood fireplace on the other side of the couch, with the couch in the middle of the room. I have in-wall gas fireplaces without mantels in other rooms. Those are much less space-hogging.

However, I live in Canada, and we have cold winters, where a fireplace is nice to have. OTOH, when I had a 1000 ft. condo, it didn't have a fireplace, and I didn't miss it at all. The fireplace would have totally destroyed the flow of the room. A reasonable compromise in that setup though is to have an small in-wall gas fireplace, but not in a dominant location:

BTW, I just put one of these in the nursery:

It's electric, so it has fan noise, and it doesn't look realistic. And I just hung it on the wall instead of flush mounting, because I'm lazy. We do have a gas line going to the room, but it would have been several thousand bux to install a nice gas fireplace so I didn't bother.

I also ran a gas line to my TV room in the basement when we did our reno but in the end just decided to install a baseboard heater for $100. Saves space and saves money.

P.S. I have multiple TVs in the house. One in the living room, one in the basement, and one in my home office. I also have a projector and small guest room TV. It's ironic that great big TVs often cost less than iPads these days. My 42" plasma is about the same price as the cheapest iPad 4.

Phileas · Dec 5, 2012, 07:51 PM

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

Well, that's what I'm getting at. Do you guys not watch TV or movies or do you just do it somewhere else?

I can't remember the last time I've watched TV. My wife watches some shows she likes on her iPad.

Face Ache · Dec 5, 2012, 07:57 PM

Originally Posted by mindwaves

Thoughts?

Depends on the age of the house. Anything pre-1940, I'd probably keep the fireplace because they're expected in those kinds of houses, and you'd be hurting your resale value by removing a period feature. Post-1940 I'd rip that sucker out.

I've removed fireplaces from two 1970's houses.

design219 · Dec 6, 2012, 03:31 AM

There is also the Santa factor.

Eug · Dec 6, 2012, 07:06 AM

Originally Posted by Face Ache

Depends on the age of the house. Anything pre-1940, I'd probably keep the fireplace because they're expected in those kinds of houses, and you'd be hurting your resale value by removing a period feature. Post-1940 I'd rip that sucker out.
I've removed fireplaces from two 1970's houses.

Around here (Toronto) it's common to see older homes heavily renovated, as opposed to being torn down and rebuilt. The fireplace is sometimes removed. The reno has way more importance to the resale value, with the fireplace being only a minor consideration. Furthermore, some people don't like fireplaces anyway.

One of the problems is that it can get quite expensive to update an old worn fireplace. That money can better be used for say modern bathroom fixtures or new floors or whatever.

However, I'll admit many of those houses are 1945-1955ish bungalows as opposed to grand pre-1940 mansions.

andi*pandi · Dec 6, 2012, 07:52 AM

Those of us with fireplaces can better survive ice storms and power outages (although not as well as those of us with generators).

Eug · Dec 6, 2012, 08:12 AM

I have both. The fireplace came in handy when my gas furnace broke. I don't know if the generator even works though. It came with the house but I haven't ever tried starting it in the 5 years I've lived here. It's hooked up to an electrical subpanel so if I cut power to the main panel, by flipping a switch and turning on the generator I can theoretically run some stuff in the kitchen off the generator.

However, this is pretty unnecessary for most people of course. Like I said, I've never bothered even trying it.

mindwaves · Dec 6, 2012, 10:18 AM

Thanks for the replies.

I am looking at houses either built in the 1970s (for the style, single-story only) or houses built in the late 1990s or 2000s (for more modern style and durability (1 or 2 stories)).

Phileas · Dec 6, 2012, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Eug

Around here (Toronto) it's common to see older homes heavily renovated, as opposed to being torn down and rebuilt. The fireplace is sometimes removed. The reno has way more importance to the resale value, with the fireplace being only a minor consideration. Furthermore, some people don't like fireplaces anyway.
One of the problems is that it can get quite expensive to update an old worn fireplace. That money can better be used for say modern bathroom fixtures or new floors or whatever.
However, I'll admit many of those houses are 1945-1955ish bungalows as opposed to grand pre-1940 mansions.

I'd say that period homes, especially at the upper end of the market, are expected to come with working fireplaces. From my own, admittedly anecdotal, observations, there's finally a bit of a backlash against the "rip it out and go open plan" attitude developing that has been the mainstay of so many boring, soulless renos in old TO houses.

When we renovated our home just five years ago, contractors we contacted for quotes expressed surprise that we wanted to save and refinish the old high baseboards for example. Their attitude was that it was much cheaper to rip everything out, put up drywall and be done with it. We finally found somebody who understood old houses and was interested in peeling back the layers, restoring the original as much as possible, but it took time and effort. Today it is much easier to find builders who specialize in saving and restoring.

In my part of town, Parkdale, a lot of Victoria homes were turned into rooming houses in the 1950's and 60's. Many of these are being turned back into family homes, with original features, and layout, highly prized. Our street went from 70% rooming house to 90% family occupied in the last 5 years. Our neighbour, who has lived on this street her entire life, says she's never seen so many young children living here as today.

It's different in the subburbs, and with post-war homes for sure. Also, Victorian homes in Toronto typically had coal fireplaces. The flue of a coal fireplace is too narrow to remove the CO2 of a wood-burning fire. As a result, it is almost impossible to retrofit a wood-burner into a Victorian fireplace, leaving gas as the only realistic option if people want a real flame.

Younger homes, starting with houses built in the 1920's typically had central heating of some kind and the fireplaces switched from coal to wood and from the only source of heat to being largely ornamental.

iMOTOR · Dec 6, 2012, 07:51 PM

Stone fire pit in backyard>fireplace indoor.

iMOTOR · Dec 6, 2012, 07:51 PM

DP

Shaddim · Dec 6, 2012, 08:51 PM

Good grief, gotta have a fireplace, or 5.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 7, 2012, 03:23 AM

We've got 4, 3 of which could be used (the other has the chimney bricked off inside - it's the second fireplace in the room anyway). Unfortunately the chimneys are not lined, which means (although they've been there for ~100 years) the insurance company won't let me use them. They're also coal, which you can still buy in bags....it's not as hard as Phileas indicated to convert the chimney to wood, it's only a 6" liner (I can't imagine they made flues that won't fit a 6" liner??), but it's the fire box that's the big problem - coal fireboxes are very shallow, so they need to be banged out and re-motared etc.

I recently looked at sticking a pellet stove in one of mine, but at the end of the day it would be about 5 grand or so, not including the work to deepen the fire box. Not cheap by any means.

Phileas · Dec 7, 2012, 06:33 AM

It's more than the firebox. Coal flues aren't wide enough in diameter (6" is not enough, 10" is the recommended minimum) to remove the CO2 from a wood fire, especially a slow burning wood fire. Burning a wood fire in a coal fireplace is potentially very dangerous.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 7, 2012, 07:54 AM

Nope, standard chimney liners for woodstove inserts are 6-inch or 8-inch. I just had a mason in this week and got quotes on installation. Most chimney flues are actually too big, not too small. I could probably fit a small child down the top of all my flues, and all my fireplaces are coal (as are most with this age of home, at least in my area, unless they've been converted over the years).

The issue around here is at the bottom - the firebox is a shallow rectangle, with the bricks built into a "ledge" behind it which opens up into the flue. Those need to be chisled out to have direct access to the flue.

Phileas · Dec 8, 2012, 08:28 PM

Interesting. I wonder if different provinces have different codes. We were told by both our architect and the contractor that a wood conversion was impossible because of flue diameter.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 9, 2012, 11:32 AM

Hah.....to the extent there was any when these houses were originally built? It's probably the original chimney size that's the problem.

Phileas · Dec 10, 2012, 06:34 AM

Yes, but the original chimney diameter is 8" wide. According to your information, that should not present us with a problem. It would really piss me off if we could have had a wood burning fireplace after all.

Our house, in typical Toronto fashion, has been extended twice. The first extension happend very soon after the original house was built - it's Victorian double brick, with a proper foundation and basement. The second addition was built in the 1950's by the looks of it - out of cardboard and matchsticks. The plan is to demolish that part of the house, then build a ultra modern cube as a replacement, with a large, glass walled kitchen and family room.

In there, I am planning for a wood fired pizza oven.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 10, 2012, 07:57 AM

Beauty! One of my good friends here in town has been trying to find a way to stick one in his kitchen as well - don't think he has the layout, though. We actually have the perfect kitchen for something of that nature - open brick chimney on the inside wall has a couple newer bricks patching the old hole where a kitchen stove used to tie into the chimney. I've thought about adding one of those classic old cast-iron wood-burning kitchen stoves but I simply can't justify it to the wife.

Were you looking at an open fireplace? In that case, you definitely need a larger flue size - I would think at least 9-10 inches, and that's always determined by the size of the firebox (opening) if I understand correctly. Open fireplaces are brutal on heating efficiency, though - a net drag.

We were looking to have a wood or pellet-burning insert installed in the fireplace - flue sizes are smaller for those. For a wood-burning insert, I would think that an 8" liner is the absolute maximum anyone would use, and standard is 6" - pellet stoves use 4".

Phileas · Dec 10, 2012, 12:03 PM

Ahhh - it all makes sense now. Yes, we were planning on an open fireplace. Truth be told I never even thought about a wood burning stove.... Hmmmm.

Shaddim · Dec 10, 2012, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by Phileas

In there, I am planning for a wood fired pizza oven.

Brilliant. I love having a fireplace in the kitchen, it makes for some great cooking options.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 10, 2012, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Phileas

Ahhh - it all makes sense now. Yes, we were planning on an open fireplace. Truth be told I never even thought about a wood burning stove.... Hmmmm.

Yep, that's our difference!

Open fireplaces are, apparently, absolutely terrible for heat efficiency (and insurance rates!), although obviously they have the most charm.

The latest wood stoves are shockingly efficient. Pellet stoves even cut out the annoyance of having to deal with split wood and/or light a fire, but they do have to be plugged in (which means unless you have a generator, they're not nearly as useful when the power goes out).

sek929 · Dec 10, 2012, 01:51 PM

I love wood stoves, my father has had on in his homes for his entire life, and we have a really cool old cast iron bastard.

Nothing can replicate the heat of a cranking woodstove after coming in from the cold.

ShortcutToMoncton · Dec 11, 2012, 04:57 AM

Originally Posted by sek929

Nothing can replicate the heat of a cranking woodstove after coming in from the cold.

Yep....we had a corner freestanding woodstove with a huge stone hearth. Come in half-freezing in the winter, balance on the hearth as close as possible to the hot stove without falling off or falling on.....