So we’ve reached that stage of the renovations, and it’s time for us to choose a fireplace insert. It will be a direct vent to a driveway - there is an old chimney, but for various reasons, some of them related to the building code, we would rather vent out to the driveway than re-commission the chimney. The high efficiency gas furnace is the primary heat source for the whole house - this is just for decoration and emergency heating.
My impression thus far - Gas is more efficient in terms of its emissions, there’s no mess with the ashes, nor with the storage of wood. There are models that can be manually started, so in the case of an Ice Storm style power outage, it can still be used as a heating source.
Wood inherently looks prettier and more natural. Woodburning fireplaces can be brought up to higher efficiency than ever before, though not as high an efficiency as gas. (Is that true or not? I’m asking your informed opinions…) Lighting one is as easy as lighting a fire, irrespective of the state of the electricity. For that matter, in an emergency which has cut off the gas supply, you can still keep the water pipes in the house from freezing. (Toronto, ON climate - the pipes would be frozen by today if the heat had been totally off since about Friday, give or take. I’m not going to experiment.)
It has to be an insert as we don’t have much room - Mme. La Ministre has the dimensions with her at the moment. The living room, while open concept, is approx. 10 feet wide from outside wall to the ‘wall’ that separates it from the entry way. The fireplace will be on that outside wall.
What are your thoughts? Please help fight my ignorance.
I’ve got both in my house and I vote for gas. It is WAY easier and WAY less messy. We have a fake stack of logs in our gas fireplace that look very real, so all you have to do is turn on the gas, throw a match in, and voila’- a beautiful cozy fire!!
The woodburning fireplace on the other hand, rarely gets used because it’s a pain to constantly bring in wood and get it to light up (esp if it’s damp). Then there are the ashes. God do I hate the ashes. However, the woodburning fireplace does seem to produce more heat than the gas one—still not worth the trade off imo.
A couple of years ago St. Louis had a major power outage after an ice storm. We had no electricity for three days/two nights. The temperature was in the 20’s and our family (two adults, one kid, one dog) ended up sleeping in front of the gas fireplace.
In that situation, I would have happily traded the convenience of gas, for the raw BTUs of a wood fireplace filled with glowing coals. The gas fire didn’t provide any warmth beyond a distance of 24". All it really did was send warm air up the chimney and suck cold air into the house.
If you just want some glow for a couple of hours, gas is the way to go. If you actually are expecting to feel warmth while you’re on the sofa, wood will do a better job. (Or you could turn on the gas and also put a small electic heater by your feet.)
My parents have a wood burning fireplace that has a gas starter-thingy in it. Pretty cool for those that aren’t good at building fires. You turn on the gas, light it, then pile in the wood. Don’t have to be picky about kindling, damp wood, etc.
I’m sitting in front of a roaring wood fire at the moment, and although I really hate the mess of a real fire, I love the atmosphere and the heat you get off it. Maybe it helps that I don’t have to go out into the cold to get more wood.
So if that’s a consideration, get the real thing. If you just want something to look pretty, it’s got to be gas all the way.
We had two gas insert fireplaces in the house we built and they did just the opposite. They were like evil little furnaces that you could only keep on for 5 minutes before they blasted you right out of the room.
I like pellet stoves. Nice warm bakey wood heat, but much cleaner than using logs and they work on a thermostat.
Do you have a propane tank already? Or is it natural gas ?
When it comes to filling up the propane tank, alot of companies require a minimum and ours is $420 order. With 10 days to pay.
We primarily heat our house with our heat-a-lator fireplace and keep the thermosat set at 62.
**Pros: **
1.Keeps things nice a warm. Our propane lasts until spring if we are diligent with the fireplace.
Wood is cheap and mostly free.
Burn your newspapers and paper packaging, reducing garbage out of house.(The buttloads of paperwork that comes home from school is a wonderful fire starter. So are 2008 political junk mail.)
Automatic turn off when fire gets too low to generate enough heat.
Very low maintence. ( You are suppose to oil the motor ever 6 months. We did not know this and never oiled it in 15 years. New motors are like $80 plus shipping.) Not a big deal, really.
When there is a power outage ( longest one we’ve had was 10 days. Ice storm.) our house is nice and toasty.
No worrying about gas leaks. (As a city raised kid, this is something kinda nerve racking for me.)
Stacking wood is brainless and meditative. Done right, it is picturesque. Done wrong, it still kinda looks nice. Plus, you get a good work out in the fresh air. Try that with a Wii!
If you or your neighbors don’t get a newspaper anymore, nearly every school has paper recycling boxes thingies that are wonderful for a grocery bag or three of fire starter. Bonus round is grabbing a grocery bag filled with magazines ( which are not recycleable and it says so on the side of these huge metal containers) and taking home two years back issue of InStyle Magazine. w00t!!11 Cons:
Ash removal. ( we keep a metal bucket outside and fill it with the ashes when they look dead to mostly dead and trot it out to the brush to dump. How you dispose of your ashes is important. If you like in McMansionville or an older, established neighborhood, you just can’t dump them easily somewhere on your little lot without consideration of which way the wind will blow and have to be wary of any possible embers.)
When the motor is on, it is a louder white noise and forces you to turn up the TV considerably. THIS CAN BE SLIGHTLY ANNOYING WHEN THREE OF THE FOUR FAMILY MEMBERS ARE TRYING TO SLEEP.
The furnace turns off ( good.Saves Money.) but the basement gets really cold
(Wah!, as the computer is in the basement.)
If you don’t live anywhere near woody areas, finding a supplier can be troublesome. If you don’t have a truck or a trailer, your car will get dirty Cityfolk tend to be a little odd when it comes to the cleanliness of their vehicles inside and out. You pussies! or you pay extra for delivery.
You are going to need an axe and saw for starters. (This, IMHO, is GOOD.)
Wet wood. Fine for pron, lousy to start a fire.
To me there is nothing more homey that a well stacked orderly pile of wood located by a front or back door in the winter and seeing the white smoke A new pope has been elected at every house! coming from the chimney.
Apartment in California had real wood burning fireplace.
Warmed the place up nicely, but was a real mess and worse, when you started a fire but then wanted to go to bed…well, I was nervous and didn’t like the idea of a fire still burning in the living room.
Currently have gas fireplace…easy, clean, perfect for the effect and it actually does warm up the living room quickly.
So yeah, the real thing is nice, and the sound of crackling wood and all, but it was such a pain in the ass to clean, the whole house smelled like there had been a forest fire nearby and I was too paranoid about leaving the room when it was going, and even though we had a metal screen every once in awhile, an ember would pop out.
Another concern about gas is that if you do have a power outage for a couple of days and heat the house with the fireplace, your propane tank is drained really quickly.
My take on it is:
Do you have the lifestyle to enjoy real wood? Do you have time to start a wood fire, sometimes it can take a hour or so to get it really going? Do you enjoy maintaining the fire?
As for emergency heat, a gas stove can provide it, or you can buy a kerosene or propane heater if you are that concerned. (a battery operated CO detector is a good idea also)
We have a gas insert. The keys to happy gas furnaces are: 1) blower you can turn on and off and 2) remote with thermostat.
Our insert doesn’t need a blower, but to effectively heat the room it’s in, the blower makes a huge difference. The remote has a thermostat can be set to an automotic mode. You set the desired temperature of the room, then when the temp drops below it a few degrees, the flames come on, blower kicks in automatically. When the room is at the correct temperature, the flames go off again.
If you want the pretty flames to stay on, but not the heat, you can turn off the blower. The insert will still give off some heat, but it won’t knock you out of the room if the blower is off.
ETA:
So my vote is: for versatility and actual heating go for the gas insert. The fake logs now are WAY more realistic than they used to be. They aslso gave us some weird fuzzy stuff, that when heated, glows to look like coals.
I have a wood-stove in my fireplace. This is it, though mine doesn’t have the decorative surrounding. The house started out as a cabin over 70 years ago, and the fireplace was the heater. Eventually it got baseboard electric heaters, which are expensive to operate. They’ve been disconnected. My friend had a propane heater installed a couple of years before I bought the place. There is no natural gas in this neighbourhood (though there is a main about 100 yards away, and another a couple of blocks away). The thing about propane is that you have to have the tank filled. Service seems to be better now, as the truck comes by to fill it regularly. But when I first moved here I had to call the company and I got a bit nervous a few times when it took a few days for them to come out. There was a wood-stove in the fireplace, but it was in poor condition and the chimney needed a new liner.
The new wood-stove has a glass front, so it’s pretty when there’s a fire in it. There was a storm a couple of years ago that brought down some large branches, so I had free wood to burn. There is a thermostatically-controlled blower that circulates the hot air. (AFAIK the thermostat can’t be set. The only control is for the fan speed.) I keep a metal ash can for the ashes, and I have a place to dump the ashes. Sure, it’s a little messy cleaning out the ashes, and sometimes it’s nasty out and I don’t relish dumping them; but it’s not that big a chore. It’s also a new stove designed to be more efficient than old ones. Once the wood gets burning there’s virtually no smoke coming out of the chimney.
The important thing to me is that the wood-stove gives me a third source of heat. The propane furnace is the primary source; I have oil-filled radiator-style electric heaters in the living room and two of the bedrooms, and then there’s the wood-burner. If I run out of propane, I have the portable electric heaters. If I lose electricity and also run out of propane, I can still use the stove. If I don’t have any wood it’s easy enough to get some. I also have a 3kw Honda generator so that in case of a power failure I can run the fan on the propane furnace and/or wood-stove as well as running a space heater. I like having alternatives! (Of course I have Coleman lanterns and candle lanterns for light, and nearly a dozen Svea 123 and similar stoves for cooking.)
For me a gas fireplace just won’t do. Propane is expensive, and unlike piped-in gas it can run out. I live in a rural seaside village, so I want the redundancy of a third source of heat. Aesthetics are nice, but warmth not dependent on propane deliveries or power lines is better. If you’re in a city this might not matter to you.
Many thanks for the replies so far - keep 'em coming!
Quick note as I dash off to pick up the kids -
We are in the heart of the city, so we are on the gas line (Gas furnace, gas water heater, gas stove). Don’t need to worry about propane. My in-laws live in the woods in south-western Ontario, so we don’t really need to worry about our wood supply, either, if that’s the way we go. Come to that, I’ve been lighting things on fire since I was about 8 years old (my household chore was the garbage, and where we lived, that meant burning it and hauling the ashes to the nuisance ground. I got to gather up the trash and light it.), and I’m quite used to lighting both campfires and wood stoves.
Anyway, the primary function of this fireplace is decorative, with a secondary function as a backup heat source for emergencies. General impression of what you’re all telling me thus far is that the gas is better for convenience and cleanliness, the wood is better for actually throwing some heat out. Good gas inserts can be just as pretty as natural wood fires, whereas natural wood fires just are pretty, inherently.
Sanders I’ll double check my information about whether there is such a thing as a direct vent wood fireplace insert, and whether or not electricity is involved. (Yes, I know better than to run an unvented fire in an emergency - lots of people in Montreal made that mistake in '98)
I have to second this. My insert runs on natural gas with a blower in the flue that can vent hot air back into the room. Mine’s not on a thermostat, but it’s easy to light, and the blower has an on/off switch mounted in the wall next to the light switch. I hardly use it, as it rarely gets cold enough here in Tucson to use it, but it’s still nice to have for atmosphere or if the temperature actually does get to freezing.
NG direct vent fireplace here, converted from a wood-burning fireplace. Adjustable flame, rockwool in the sealed box looks like glowing embers, remote or manual starter, and an electric fan if you need to heat the entire place in an emergency.
We like it. On high heat, it will run you out of the house in a hurry. On low, no problem. No muss, no fuss, no danger of setting the house on fire after you go to bed.
