So the hearth is down!
So your stone fireplace now has a hearth that suits its intended use, and given that intended use, what ‘appliance’ or grate are you going to use? Wood stoves are brilliant! They burn very efficiently provided that you use dry wood, and unlike an open fire, most of the heat is retained within the room. There is no denying that stoves don’t have quite the same cosy feel as a full-on proper open fire, but when it comes to heating the room they are streets ahead. With an open dog grate, about 80% of the heat goes straight up the chimney!
However, if your room is well insulated, then stone fireplaces housing tradional open fire dog baskets are arguably the most appealing type of fire possible: The warm glow of the fire, the flickering flames, all go to give an intense feeling of warmth, in fact although most of that heat is going up the chimney, it doesn’t feel like it is….. as long as you stand quite close.
In many of the old country houses we visited when designing our firplaces, there would be a massive stone fireplace, with an incredibly heavy pair of fire dogs on which logs of about 4 feet long were burned. The ash just lay on the hearth (hence the need for a tough material) and was allowed to build up into a mound, but this is deliberate rather than lazy, as logs burn best when lying on a bed of hot ash. It’s only when burning coal that you need a grate to allow draught in from underneath.
Roll on winter!