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Putting space heater in wood stove

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:23 am
by jason.loxton
Have a chimney that I'd like to expose in my living room. Right now it is housed behind a drywall partition. The chimney has an exhaust for oil forced air, so I can't put a wood stove on it, but in the future I'd like to when the oil furnace eventually goes (replace my oil with a central heat pump on the duct work). In the meantime, I am thinking about putting a little vintage wood stove place in as a non-functional decoration, fake "attached" to the chimney. Was thinking about putting a small electric heater within it so that it could generate some heat when company were over, etc. (to be clear, I am not thinking that this would be an efficient way of heating my home, just that I might be able to make the stove heat up to sit around). Given the small space within the stove, I figure most space heaters would overheat, even if I bypassed the thermostat. Thinking maybe a small oil space heater might work.

Thoughts? Terrible idea? (The Internet isn't helping.)

Re: Putting space heater in wood stove

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:03 pm
by elreplica
If you left the stove open it likely won’t cause any problems...some space heaters (1500W~5000 BTU) will kick out if confined and overheated and a confined space might trigger that. I have had decent sized “replica” Dimplex style electric woodstoves, numerous space heaters, woodstoves pellets kerosene propane yadayada...I think you’d get by and worse case scenario will melt the heater if the fuse or breaker doesn’t trip...I’m not an electrician but have dealt with many of these gizmos in a wide variety of settings...