Do fire place iserts put out better heat then a fire place alone ?

Answer 1

You bet they do. A regular fireplace may feel warm when you are close to it, but it is sending all of the heated air your furnace is generating right up the chimney. This causes your furnace to work harder to keep up and costs you money.

The air chambers surrounding a fireplace insert allow room air to be heated and blown back into the room. The trade off is that you should use glass fireplace doors to prevent heated room air from going up the chimney. Air to the fire chamber is may be provided by small vents in the frame of the glass doors, or even better, a vent to the outside of the house. The reduced air will cause the fire to burn slower and longer which makes your supply of firewood last longer. A downside of this is that your chimney will need to be cleaned more often because of the slower burning/smokier fires. All in all, a good trade off.

Good luck with your fireplace this winter.

Answer 2

Yes. The fireplace insert circulates air around the back of the insert and out into the room when you turn on the fan. When you keep the doors closed, it is more efficient because the fire heats up the metal insert more and sends more heat into the room.
Radiant heat from an open fireplace with no insert or fan being used basically send most of the heat up the chimney.

Answer 3

Usually if they are well designed they do. Another advantage is that they can be run as airtights and effectively shut the chimney off so that it does not suck the warm air out of the house when you have no fire burning but the damper is still open. An insert may also be designed to work with fans as a sort of forced air system.