Response to bad fireplace

Shaun, if there is a lot of masonry (brick, stone) around your fireplace, it will suck up a lot of heat before letting much radiate out into the room. However, if the little stove you bought fits, go ahead and stick it in. The hard part will be fitting the top of the stove pipe into the existing flue. You'll have to get up into the chimney and see what's there. It might have round chimney pipe in it, or it may be a large open stone or brick chimney. Since the stove you purchased is small, it probably uses a small stove pipe. If you have a round chimney pipe, you can buy an adaptor for it. If your chimney is masonry (square and large) you'll have to make or have made a funnel like sheet metal adaptor. Another possibility with a masonry chimney would be to run a regular chimney pipe up it. Be more costly, but if you can't do the sheet metal work to make an adaptor, that will be costly too.

The most MOST important thing is to get a good tight seal between the stove pipe and the chimney. If you can get that, and there's sufficient clearance in the fireplace to operate the stove, it should be more efficient than what you've got now. Gerbil

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