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So here's my setup:

  • Living room has both a thermostat for the gas fireplace (dumb on/off thermostat) and a thermostat for the whole house (smart/Nest thermostat) on the wall together.
  • Living room has the gas fireplace on the same wall as the thermostats
  • Furnace runs for basement/upstairs.

What is the best way to use these together?

We tried running them at the same temp, but the fireplace always keep that room (a pretty sunny room too) so warm that the rest of the house doesn't stay anywhere near a comfortable temperature.

Last winter we tried running the fireplace during the day (@ 74) then in the afternoon we'd turn on the furnace(@ 72), and it was just never good enough.

Thanks!

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  • Is the furnace a forced air with restrictor dampers in the ducts or at the outlets? If so, you can open the dampers in the rest of the house and close it some in the room with the fireplace.
    – Jim Stewart
    Nov 21, 2017 at 10:25
  • You're suffering from bad design. It's common bad design tho, my house also has the central heat thermostat in the same room as a thermostatically controlled fireplace. As you've discovered it's basically impossible to find meaningful settings during the cold fireplace season. We solved somewhat by programming the central heat blower to cycle on to distribute heat whenever the fireplace is on (most people won't have that level of interoperability between the thermostats tho).
    – Tyson
    Nov 21, 2017 at 14:10
  • Yes, that seems like a good solution. So should I set them both to the same temperature?
    – Orion
    Nov 21, 2017 at 14:22
  • relocate the main thermostat to a different room.
    – agentp
    Nov 21, 2017 at 21:47
  • That's not a bad idea, any idea what that requires?
    – Orion
    Nov 21, 2017 at 21:50

1 Answer 1

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I have a similar set up and find it just as annoying as you do. The best solution that I've found is to set the Fireplace at your desired temperature +2 degrees, and set the furnace to your desired temperature as well as setting it to "fan always on" mode. This will help distribute some of the heat from the fireplace but isn't a perfect solution.

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  • I'll give that a try. Do you leave the fireplace on all day/night? I have been thinking about getting a smarter thermostat for the fireplace just because manual on/off gets old quick
    – Orion
    Nov 21, 2017 at 18:41
  • I only use the fireplace when we have people around and in the room, so I keep it on a manual thermostat. I have always been fearful of the fireplace running when no one is home, so I have not considered a smart thermostat.
    – cyclops
    Nov 21, 2017 at 18:54
  • I have been trying this for the past week, and it's been working fairly well. Seems that the heat is centralized in the room with the fireplace, but is decently spread through the house (don't care about heating them directly, but don't want them freezing cold either) Thanks for the answer!
    – Orion
    Nov 28, 2017 at 21:19

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