The efficiency of fireplace depends mainly on the right design. There are some significant considerations to look at, if you are thinking about getting one or more fireplaces in your house.
It will be inefficient to build a fireplace at the side or end of the house, where three of sides of the chimney are exposed to the weather. Because brick and stone have poor insulation value, they will lose much of the heat to the outdoors.
It is very important that the fireplace will contain an adjustable damper, which will limit the amount of warm air lost up the chimney to only the amount that is necessary to remove the smoke out.
The preferable location of a fireplace is away from outside walls, so that most of the heat produced and stored in the stone and brick will end up inside the house. It is not recommended to have a low chimney for safety reasons.
An efficient fireplace follows established guidelines. Even though each fireplace has its own dimensions, as a general rule, the height of the opening should be about three quarters of the width, and the depth of the firebox should be two-thirds to three-quarters of the opening height. The average fireplace has a 30-40 inch wide and 30 inches high opening. The depth is between 18-24 inches.
Another guideline refers to the scale of the fireplace according to the room size. There should be 5-square-inches of fireplace opening for every square foot of floor area. Have a single flue for each fireplace; do not connect anything else to that flue.
Glass doors for the fireplace will be a good security feature, and will reduce smoking.
You may want to have a natural gas starter installed in the fireplace for enhanced convenience.
Install the fireplace leveled with the floor for safety and efficiency.
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