There's something mesmerizing about a fire. Staring into the lapping orange flame, following it down to the hot blue roots as they rise from the reddish white glowing embers. The experience brings an enchanting warmth to its audience, especially on cold Wisconsin winter nights.

"A burning fireplace gives people a high level of comfort," says Bill Hussel, owner of Efficiently Yours Fireplace Shoppe, 850 E. Broadway in Madison.

Hussel says that demand for fireplace inserts has been high, in large part because of the high cost of home heating. A fireplace insert is an enclosed unit that is placed inside an existing fireplace. The insert acts just like a regular fireplace but without the extreme heat loss that comes with the traditional fireplace.

"All wood burning fireplaces are zero percent efficient," says Hussel. "A wood burning fireplace puts out a certain amount of heat into the room where the fireplace is located but it sucks so much air up the chimney as the fire is burning that it removes the same amount of heat from the entire house and pulls heat from all the other rooms in the house. So what everybody notices is that it's nice and toasty in the room where the fireplace is but the rest of the house is cold."

The fireplace insert is totally enclosed so warm air from the home cannot escape up the chimney. At the same time warm air from the fire is radiated out into the room. Blowers can also be used to move the warm air from the fire to warm the living area. A large glass pane on the front of the insert keeps the warm air from escaping while giving the perfect view of the fire.

The first question Hussel asks a new customer looking at fireplace inserts is whether a wood burning or natural gas unit is going to work best for them. "We go through a whole series of questions to try to figure that out. For starters we ask if they have a good supply of wood available or do they have to go out and buy it?" While there are a lot of people who prefer the wood burning units it is the natural gas models that are the most popular. With the cost of gas about the same as wood it often comes down to convenience.

"Firewood is getting very expensive. And if you have to go buy it you are actually just as economically well off using natural gas. Natural gas is a very price-effective energy today. It comes in a pipe and all you have to do is turn the valve on and you got it. With wood you have to go get it, put it in your truck and haul it. You have to bring it into your house. It has dirt; it has bugs with it."

Even if you do have a good supply of wood there is still a price to pay in time and labor, says Hussel. "Cutting and splitting wood requires an awful lot of energy. Some people love that kind of work. They're the optimists. They're saying, ‘I love that kind of exercise. I'm a nature lover. I love to cut and split firewood. It's cheaper than going to the Y(MCA) to get exercise.' There are a lot of people like that. They enjoy going through that process of cutting and splitting wood and bringing it into their house and burning it. It sort of gives them that feel like the cavemen did way back when."

Once a fuel choice is made, Hussel brings the customer into the Efficiently Yours showroom where they have several working units they can see in action.

While the Efficiently Yours Fireplace Shoppe showroom just opened in mid October, the company roots go back about 55 years. Hussel says his new fireplace shop is part of Hansen and Sons, Madison's largest chimney cleaning and repair business. Because of this relationship, Efficiently Yours is able to bring its customers a full range of services from sales and installation to service and repair.

Hussel brings a depth of experience himself as well, spanning nearly 30 years in the fireplace and chimney repair and cleaning business. Before earning his mechanical engineering degree from Ohio State, Hussel worked for his father who was a building contractor. Through his father he learned the construction trades and eventually picked the chimney business as a career.

"I chose the chimney business mainly because it is a critical construction business because of the safety elements involved. It's different from the roofing business, it's different from the window replacement business and it's different from the siding business because the fireplace and chimney is looked at from the homeowner's viewpoint as being part of the home that they want to make sure is repaired, cleaned and serviced with someone who knows what they are doing. So my intent was to make this business a very high technology, professional business that the customer gains confidence in us that we know what we're doing."

In addition to the years of experience that come from Hussel and the Hansen and Sons name are the quality fireplace inserts and stoves that Efficiently Yours sells. Each brand Hussel says is certified by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent product safety certification organization. Along with that safety and quality is a level of efficiency that Hussel says transcends even today's highest efficiency forced air furnaces.

"You can put in a 97 percent efficient furnace but first of all the 97 percent efficiency measures at when the heat leaves the furnace unit from the basement. Now you have to distribute the heat throughout the whole house. As you're moving that heat through these cold metal air ducts you lose about 20 percent of the heat before it gets up into the room. So now instead of getting 97 percent efficiency you're only getting 77 percent because of the distribution process." Inserts are about 80 percent efficient, says Hussel, adding that there is also no comparison between the two heating units when it comes to viewing pleasure. "You don't have the visual effects with a fireplace hidden away in your basement. The furnace is out of sight whereas the fireplace is right there to be enjoyed."

But above all Hussel says the fireplace insert's biggest advantage is zone heating. What this means is instead of heating the whole house, including rooms that are unoccupied most of the day, the fireplace only heats the main living area of the home. "Now you have a thermostat on the wall or a remote control thermostat which you can program and control the heat from this unit and set it for whatever temperature you want. So now you're bringing the heat only into the living space that you occupy without wasting a huge amount of energy throughout the bulk of your house. With the high cost of energy you are becoming much more efficient with this smaller heating device. The smaller heating device uses about one forth the fuel as your big furnace. Then when you go to bed you turn on the big furnace to heat the bedrooms because you're going to be in them for eight hours."

Hussel says even homes without a chimney can have a fireplace insert installed. It's called an instant fireplace and he says they can put it in anywhere the customer wants with the venting going out an exterior wall. He says the instant fireplaces are becoming quite popular. That should come as no surprise in a state where he says just about any house anymore has a fireplace. "If you go out on the market to buy a new home and it doesn't have a fireplace in it, it really is a very undesirable home because almost everybody likes that fireplace. Not only for the homeowner but for entertainment purposes for when you have friends and relatives over. It adds an enormous amount of atmosphere."

Efficiently Yours Fireplace Shoppe 

850 E. Broadway

Madison, WI 53716

Phone

608-215-1815

Showroom hours

Monday and Friday

9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday

9 a.m. to 3 p.m.