We have 2 fireplaces. The one in the family room has a new pellet stove insert and it helps keep our living area comfy. The one in the basement has a regular wood-burning insert with a very effective fan - it not only warms the basement but if we open the door to the stairwell, heat makes its way upstairs. Very nice. 
When we were house shopping, a fireplace was not a must-have - in fact, I don’t think it crossed our minds at all - but it is nice having it.
I’m living in an apartment right now and the reason I picked it over a couple of other possible properties was the gas fireplace in the living room. Makes a cold rainy night in the Pacific NW downright cozy. The cat likes it, too.
I would rather not have one in my house. I’m never going to start a fire. A wood fire actually wastes heat. I don’t think a gas fireplace really adds much atmosphere. More importantly, a fireplace limits how you can arrange furniture in the room. The last apartments I rented had fireplaces. In each of them I wished the fireplace was not there so I could have put furniture there. In one of them, I did actually put a couch in front of the fireplace making it useless, but in the other I would have put the TV where the fireplace was but couldn’t because the fireplace stuck out.
I don’t understand why fireplaces are so common here (Suburb of Seattle). I can’t imagine making desiring a fire in the above freezing temperatures that usually occur here. I think it is something like using a car’s heated seats in summer that just seems so wrong to me but other people do.
Ah, fireplaces. Some of you guys just don’t know how good you have it.
Where I live in CA you cannot add a wood burning fireplace to your house. I think you can still have one, and I mean only one, outside, but not inside. If you do have a wood burning f/p, expect that many of the coldest nights will be “No Burn” nights where it is illegal even to use your legal wood-burner (unless it’s a wood stove used to heat your house).
That said, I have a gas burning f/p which I didn’t really use much because I don’t like the fake ones, but on most nights I can actually turn it on, turn off the heat, and be just fine. The newer “fake” ones are about as nice as a fake one can get, and they’re very efficient.
Overall, though, if I had the right place, I’d absolutely put one outside. It’s the perfect place in this area and avoids all the negative stuff you encounter by having one in your house.
Yes, I do, and I do like the smell of woodsmoke, but not stale woodsmoke all “soaked” into my furniture and stuff, so I don’t use it unless I get really broke. Plus getting wood up three flights of stairs and all the messiness of wood, Ugh. (wish I’d known that most apartments have electric heat and not forced air natural gas heat like where I’m from :(). I do currently have one in my apartment but it primarily serves as a scented candle display/burning area.
I used to live in a Victorian with several fireplaces but the absolute best one was the one in the kitchen. It was high off the floor so you and (or) a kitty could sit in a chair right in front of it, drinking a cup of tea or cocoa, and the heat would flow right onto you. It was heavenly. If I could have that again I’d do it in a second.
I do have a fireplace now but I’m afraid to use it until I get it sweeped. Not much need for it here; “very cold” is about 40 degrees.
I like fire and fireplaces. But I’d like a small wood stove with a window like http://www.jotul.com/en-US/wwwjotulus/Main-menu/Products/Wood/Wood-stoves/Jotul-F-500-Oslo/
No good spot in my house for one though.
Brian
I have an electric heater fireplace set up, and I love it, especially when it is this cold. Mine is on right now. 
We have one, and use it regularly. In fact, it’s going right now. It has a glass screen and is cleaned regularly. We were very glad to have it right after Sandy when we were out of electricity, water, and heat. It wouldn’t heat the whole house, but it was quite sufficient for the living room.
Have a woodstove, use it almost everyday, and love it! Don’t mind the smell, the work, or acquiring the wood. Oh, and this girl stacks wood, cleans out the stove and lights fires almost daily. It saves us a fortune on our gas bill and adds awesome ambiance to our home. This is the second home we’ve installed a wood stove in, so we like them a lot! We live where if the power goes out you’re going to get real cold, real fast, it’s always a good idea to have a back up heat/cooking source. In a crisis I’m sure all my neighbours would like it too, since the party would surely be at our place!
Just the hubby. I don’t get much opportunity to warm the buns by an open flame anymore. 
I love sitting in front of a roaring fire. During the ice storm in Quebec my husband had nearly the whole house heated with the fireplace until I felt the wall in the next room and realised he was probably going to set the place on fire.
Someone did set our house on fire the same year and now the smell of smoke sends me into a panic. Our last house in London was 300 years old and even tho the fireplaces were gas, it was still so lovely to sit in front of it in the cozy front room. This house not so much…for some reason we’ve never used any of the fireplaces here.
So, gas fireplaces for the win, eh? I like to warm my feet up nightly in winter with my little portable heater; I could change that to heating them up at a gas fireplace, it sounds like. Fireplace designers need to take this into account - you need a comfortable place to rest your feet/put a cat.
I love a fireplace. Regrettably my house does not have one. My first house did and I used it often.
Nope, it’s critters. We like to watch them attempt to abandon ship, crawling out of their burrows, and along the length of the logs in a panicked state, not knowing where to go, with the fire lapping against their thoraxes, then {pop} and sometimes a fiery {fling} as their smoldering corpses are thrown to the grating or the brick wall to their final singe of death.
It’s like watching a Cecil B. Demille movie, but with bugs. 
Yeah, the walls becoming really warm to the touch is one of my wife’s issues with using our fireplace.
It sometimes gets cold enough in the winter that we could use our fireplace a few times a week, but we probably only bother with it once a month because of my wife’s fear that we’re going to burn the house down.
One time, I forgot to open the flue before starting a fire. We were surprised at how quickly the house filled with smoke. Even after opening it, and the front and back doors, it took a while for the smoke to clear. It freaked my wife the heck out. We didn’t use the fireplace for the rest of the Winter. Yeah, don’t forget to open the flue. :smack:
We have one and we love it. When it’s cold outside, we’ll fire it off and watch TV in front of it, snuggling up with cups of hot chocolate.
Life has precious moments.
They’re good for climates that have wet, freezing winters as a heat pump tends to freeze up and become useless. But I don’t like how most of the heat goes up the chimney. If you have one, you should also have a heat exchanger to bring a lot of clean, hot air into the living space. With a heat exchanger, you can run the fire at lower levels and still get a lot of heat well after the fire has gone out (while you’re waiting to close the flue).
Have one and love it, something very romantic about burning wood. I love the smell and the snap crackle pop of the burning wood. They make a mess however, ashes and the debris from the wood brought into the house as well as the wood supply and the way you store it.
Nerd alert, have a video of ours in operation.
I grew up in Florida and live in PA now. I always wanted a home with a fireplace.
Part of the reason (granted, a small part) I rented this place is for the fireplace (the main reasons were price, massive amount of closet space for a home built in '63, and the sunroom)
It’s not that great for heating the entire house, so I use it more for pleasure than actual heating. I think it’s beautiful ~ especially at night.
UT~
