I have a 2500 sf house (daylight ranch) with a trane natural gas forced air furnace. In the winter, we spend most of the time down stairs, as this is where our family room/bedrooms are. The trane’s thermostat is upstairs, so I have to heat both floors. We have a fireplace upstairs. I am thinking about putting in a wood burning fireplace insert in the upstairs fireplace and using the trane’s "whole house fan" to move the warm air produced by the insert around the house effectively not using the natural gas furnace to produce the heat. I have plenty of firewood on site and will have more once some other trees are cut down on the property, split and seasoned. My question is can I justify the cost of the insert and will the whole house fan effectively and efficiently move the air. We’ve been informed by our gas utility that rates will be increasing 30-40% here in the NW.
Cost of wood for the frist few years would be zero as we’ve had some large trees taken down on the property and kept the wood on site. I would be concerned a bit about environmental issues, but I believe most modern fireplace inserts have high efficiency ratings and decent environmental controls. I dont have the knowledge to compute the carbon and environmental impact of wood vs. gas