i just to temporarily cover it up because of a mice issue. Should I just use a steel mesh or drywall? Maybe in a year, I will pay for an expensive chimney repair before it becomes usable but I have one question. I am allergic to any kind of smoke smell so with these woodstove inserts, does any smoke smell emanate into the household? I spend a lot of time only 6 feet away from the fireplace and if I smell smoke, my throat gets very parched. My heating bill is $400 a month so definitely interested in doing this

Thanks

Basically the only time smoke will enter the room is when you put wood in it while it's burning.

With the modern airtight EPA rated stoves, once they're up to temperature, there's literally no visible smoke at all, either in the room or out the chimney.

I sold the house with the fireplace and now live in Vermont where I built a modular home. Although I have a modern heating system, my main source of heat is a freestanding woodstove. During a typical Vermont winter my total heating bill including the price of wood averages under $600 for the winter.

Great - I watched this video to understand what is a wood stove insert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEK6RREfIA4

1) Can I ask how is the heat uniformity in the entire home - fireplace on 1st floor and all bedrooms on 2nd floor

2) Also, how many feet away does my couch have to be from the fireplace? Currently the back of it actually touches the fireplace

Thanks

Heat rises. But you don't want your bedrooms to be as hot at night as the rest of the house.

The surface temperature of the stove when in full operation can be between 400 and 600 degrees, so if you're right next to it you'll get hot real fast. So putting the back of the sofa anywhere near it isn't a good idea.

In my house the stove is in the corner of the living room and the TV is on a side wall. We enjoy the fire so there are times we'll turn off the TV because with what's on TV today the fire is a lot more entertaining. Plus when we get a good snowstorm, we can expect a power failure for a couple hours, so the stove keeps us warm and entertains at the same time.

If mice are using the chimney to enter your home, you need to go up and put a screen cap on the chimney. Closing it off at floor level will just give the mice a nice warm place to nest during fall and winter. And it will not smell nice when you open it to clean and set it up again as a fireplace.

We made our own cover with fiber board from home depot. The board was cheap and so was the trim. It already in a brick design and they cut it to the size we wanted.

Anything other than a steel mesh the mice can knaw their way through.