I’ve had both types of fireplaces multiple times. On occasion, the wood fireplace did get hotter than the gas, but that was the exception, and involved piling lots of fuel at once. With the house in Mississauga [the OP at least will know where I mean :)], the fireplace was in the great room on the second floor, and so took a long time to affect the thermostat on the main floor, resulting in situations where we had to open the upstairs windows in the middle of winter in order to be able to sleep without suffering in the heat.
For sheer aesthetics while sitting in front of it, it’s hard to beat the wood burning fire. But, as Sanders points out, with a side vent you’d need an electric fan to keep it going.
Ah. I was down in L.A. when there was a bad storm here (84 mph winds). Knocked the power out, of course. A friend was staying in my house. He had the propane heater, but the electric fan on it wouldn’t work. This was before the wood stove was replaced, and without electricity the propane furnace was the only source of heat. I did tell him where my Svea collection is, and I bought the generator I mentioned earlier. (He only slid off the road once going to pick it up.)
Yeah, same here. Toronto is much milder than Alaska, but any situation that causes the heat to be out for more than about 24 hours, it becomes risky. Late last September, we had a ‘early’ frost’ in Toronto while I was finishing the demolition on the house. Because the furnace was off and I had removed the minimal insulation that was in the place from when it was built ~1910, the pipes froze, burst and then, because the water was still on, thoroughly soaked the place. If it had dropped to much below -5 degrees Celsius, I’d be astonished, but it was enough to do the job.
That’ll teach me not to try and keep one bathroom going in the demo zone. Not that I’m ever doing this again…
Well, that could be a bit tricky…ours is turned on by the flip of a switch, an electric switch.
I supposed it would be possible to use a lighter or something, but have never tried doing that and by the time I figured it out, CSI would be in my living room trying to figure out why I froze to death sprawled flat on my stomach so near a fireplace…
I’ve got a gas insert. Every morning in the winter, Icome down and fire it up. As the kids come down before school they all sit in front of the fire…warming up (I keep the house cool). When they’re all gone, I turn it off, close the damper and the fireplace doors and head off to work. If I had started a wood fire I would have to either wait for it to die leave the damper open all day…can you say “COLD”?
Same in the evening…fire it up for atmosphere and warmth, then shut it off and go to bed. Iused to have a wood burning stove in a previous house and I could damp it down to snuff the fire efre bed. Nice, but the forest fire smell was awful.
The fake logs we have in the gas insert are ceramic. They look great, and once they are warm they radiate heat like crazy. Vermiculite (or similar) under the logs glows like coals.
Umm, you could try lighting it manually when it’s not an emergency to figure it out.
Some of the ones I’ve seen work sort of like a gas barbecue - there’s a ceramic thing that looks like a flattened-out spark plug, and the power for the spark is provided by pushing the button. Any other wiring in there is for the lights, fans, etc. By no means have I checked every model in existence.
