Fireplaces, schools, and lakes! (New London, Andover: for sale, real estate, house)

[kerrybean]

Hi, all! For 5 years or so I've been watching the New England states' forums, with the idea of an eventual move. Haven't posted much, though. DH & I have been living in Jacksonville, FL for 20 years, but we have lived in Michigan and CT prior to that. Lately I've been fixated on New Hampshire as our likely goal, and I've spent a lot of time looking at real estate online to see what level of house and property we might afford. It would help me a lot in my planning if anyone could speak to these kind of unrelated questions:
1. We've got to have a wood burning fireplace in any future home, but that really limits the housing options. I'm not talking wood stove, although it would be great to have that in addition to a fireplace! So how complicated would it be to install a wood fireplace in an existing house, and how expensive?
2. Same questions about building a garage (not necessarily attached to house). Not a metal-shed type, but not fancy either.
3. We don't have kids (too old for that anyway!) but do you think the quality of a town's schools matters in some way to even childless people? Does it imply anything else about the town?
4. We love to look at water (who doesn't?), especially lakes. It is highly unlikely we could ever afford the kind of house we'd like on lakefront property, but is there still a point to living in the lakes district? Is there a ton of access visually and for, say, canoeing and swimming on most lakes available to non-lakefront owners?
THANKS!!

[ynot67]

Andover, NH is a great toen with fab real estate, the schoold are good and the ommunity is tight, I live in Wilmot, the schools are a bit better and it is a sweet town. Tons of realesate for sale up here.
Check out New London agency for listings. is the fireplace an aesthetics thing???

other great towns, springfield, warner, sutton, new london

[AngelaK]

There are public boat launches and access to nearly all the lakes in NH, so you don't have to own property to use the lake in that manner! Enjoy!

[kerrybean]

It's been great to hear that there are so many towns people would recommend. And excellent to know now that we can have lake access wherever we might live. I'm quite interested in the lakes region, but concerned about being near good health care. As to a fireplace, we use one of the ones in our current home in FL, and I find it so beautiful and peaceful to sit and watch fire. Completely relaxing. Anyway, if in the future I found a wonderful house that didn't come with a fireplace and/or garage, I've been wondering about the feasibility of adding these....

[Ken E]

There are some really efficient wood stoves now that can be closed and used as a heater or opened up and used as a fireplace with a screen. That way you get the best of both worlds. A regular fireflace might be ok in the late spring or early fall but you'd be throwing a whole bunch of wood in there in the winter.Not real efficient. Garages are real handy to have for storage of outdoor equiptment, tools ect. Nice place to put the car in the winter. There are plenty of nice places near the lakes that have access without being right on the water. Good Luck

[ottoman]

Originally Posted by Ken E

There are some really efficient wood stoves now that can be closed and used as a heater or opened up and used as a fireplace with a screen. That way you get the best of both worlds. A regular fireflace might be ok in the late spring or early fall but you'd be throwing a whole bunch of wood in there in the winter.Not real efficient. Garages are real handy to have for storage of outdoor equiptment, tools ect. Nice place to put the car in the winter. There are plenty of nice places near the lakes that have access without being right on the water. Good Luck

+1 on the fire place/ wood stove. Your real just throwing money into the fire. Some stoves have glass doors so you can see the fire. Allot people are selling wood for $200.00 a cord (4 by 4 by 8) not a lot of wood.

here is a link to all of the public launch in NH.

Public Access Maps - N.H. Fish and Game

[kerrybean]

I didn't know there were wood stoves you could also use as a fireplace... That sounds worth exploring! Any brand like that you'd recommend? DH is dead set against the idea of a wood stove substituting for a fireplace, but he hasn't checked the stoves out in a looooong time. I'd like to show him some of the current models! Yah, I know that having an open fireplace is wasteful and expensive, but I don't think I could resist (at least once in a while). Sigh. Thanks for the advice!

[Ken E]

There are a lot of companies that make them. I have a Vermont Castings in my cabin up there.I have a smaller one because the cabin isnt that big. I have a bigger woodburner in the basement for heat.

[Jennymcb]

I would have to agree with the woodstove versus the fireplace. The fireplace was the first thing to get updated when we bought over 10 years ago. We put in a woodstove insert with blowers, it's now functional, there's no cold draft and we have heat. It makes it very comfortable in the winter.

Another option to lakes and oceans would be river views! We kayak along the Contoocook river and there are some beautiful spots. Plus there are some very nice large ponds and small lakes in and around NH. Without an income tax or sales tax, our property taxes are high and in some towns the taxes are higher for waterviews, just something to keep in mind when looking.

[ottoman]

Here is what i will most likely use this winter.




Fireplace's are nice, but when its -19 degrees in January you will not be sitting around the fireplace. You would probably like the outdoor type fireplace they make know a days. There are plenty of late spring or early fall nights for that, or camp fire which is pretty much what we would call a fireplace in NH.