KFW40EE house - fireplace fire but it should not get too hot

Good evening everyone,

in our (still)rental apartment we have a super cozy wood stove in front of which we often sit in the evenings and watch the flames. Since we will soon start building a prefabricated house KFW40EE (timber frame construction), we of course wanted to have that there as well.

The heat input into the new house from such a wood stove is much too high (according to internet sources) because the heat release happens very directly and unbuffered into the room. Does anyone have an idea how we can have such a low-energy house with a fireplace flame effect without it blowing our minds? :D Can a chimney-installed fireplace help?

Best regards from Passau

A basic stove with plenty of material "drumherum" can release heat much more evenly and is therefore also much more effective. The investment is of course many times higher, but so is the heating comfort. But whether that is sufficiently "cold" for a low-energy house, I cannot assess.

Does anyone have an idea how we can create such a low-energy house with a fireplace flame effect without it blowing our minds? :D

No thermal mass and therefore burn the heat directly through the fireplace. That works very well. Or use wood that burns cooler ;)

Gas fireplace (very popular in the USA), Ethanol fireplace Or my all-time favorite: fireplace fire in 4k on Netflix, Prime Video, or YouTube (quite seriously) If it's just about the look, you can also design it purely visually. I think you can even hear it crackle.

Does anyone have an idea how we can manage such a low-energy house with a fireplace flame effect without it blowing our minds?

In my experience, that really only works with gas/ethanol/steam/video. A real fire is simply too hot – one of the reasons why we decided against a fireplace in our current house.

We will install an electric built-in fireplace in a drywall partition. There are really nice models available. We didn't want a real fireplace either due to the excessive heat and effort. Additionally, we will build an outdoor fire pit to be able to sit in front of a real fire in the evenings.