Ok. I am in the process of remodeling my house. I am not living there yet (in fact, I have not even worked on it since Christmas), and it is pretty much gutted out. I am starting over from scratch.
As I said in a past thread, my oil furnace died. And I am now most likley going with a NG furnace.
I like the look of fireplaces. And I want to include at least one (in the den). But I am now thinking of putting one in every room (The house has 1 bedroom, the den, living room and kitchen, not counting the bathroom), but I may not put one in the kitchen (need to get a layout for it first).
Now, I can’t make heads or tails of that enegery star website. My question is, are NG fireplaces efficient? Is it a good idea to put them in every room? I am thinking that if I am going to be in one room for a few hours, I can turn the main heat down and use the fireplace.
Some are decorative, and some are designed for area heating. Some are ventless, others use existing chimneys, and others vent to the exterior of a dwelling. Suggest you draw a floorplan with dimensions and visit a store which sells such appliances to become better acquainted with differences, safety features, and so forth.
But I will provide one anecdotal data point. I have a gas fireplace installed by the builder when the house was built. It provides some radiant heat into the room but not nearly as much as if I used the same amount of gas to power the furnace. The fireplace was designed so as to be convertible to a conventional wood-burning affair so there is a functional chimney with a flue damper. Code requires the flue damper to be blocked open an inch or two to vent the gas fireplace. Therefore, as with a wood fireplace, much of the hot air just goes right up the chimney.
So I consider it to be a feature for atmosphere, but not the heating thereof.
I believe there are gas fireplaces available with blowers, which will blow hot air from the fire into the room, capturing some of the heat that would otherwise go up the chimney or out the vent.
We replaced our wood-burning fireplace with a gas direct-vent fireplace for a number of reasons, no mess and greatly reduced fire hazard being chief among them. Our fireplace comes with an optional fan switch, which means we can use it primarily for atmosphere or for heating. It also has a remote control which can be set up like a set-back thermostat and programmed to come on before we get home. This is no more dangerous than setting your furnace to come on in the same manner, since a gas fireplace is virtually the same thing as a furnace, but in your living space. With the fan on, it will run you out of the house in short order. Regular fireplaces, while charming, are generally hugely inefficient as heaters.
It was a 3 bedroom house. The master bedroom, and to small bedrooms. The small ones were Around 10’ by 9’. So I opened the 2 small rooms into one bigger one. It is going to be my den. But in the event I get married and have a kid, it can be a bedroom.
I have a Lennox direct vent w/ a remote control with thermostat built into the remote and it saves me energy as I use it to heat my family room and kitchen instead of running the whole house heater.
Direct vent = glass on front and can run all day/night.
Ventless = no glass on front and will shut down after given am’t of time and/or if humidity levels rise to X %. A bi-product of burning gas is water vapor, and where I live these units must have safety features that shut them off after a certain time/humidity is reached.
Too many variables for SDMB - seek professional help. Also, fireplaces are not the best or even good choices for heat. There are other heating options that are more efficient, but the efficient ones just ain’t as pretty.
Yes, that’s what I meant. They are capable of kicking out a tremedous amount of heat, and even with the fan turned off, it can get very warm. And yes, we’re very happy with it. I’m not sure why you are averse to the glass front. Many wood-burning fireplaces have glass screens. Another advantage to a gas fireplace is that you can go with a much smaller hearth, or even without any hearth at all. The hearth is for catching embers; no embers=no hearth requirment. I’ll try to remember to post before and after photos of our reno when I get home.
Oh, definitely! It’s original to the house. It vents to the outside (no chimney) and has a glass door. The model I have has a remote control option, but it’s not installed. I have two switches on the wall – one for the flame and one for the fan. The fan is wired through a thermostat; it doesn’t switch on until the fireplace has warmed up. Hidden under a decorative panel are manual controls for the flame and the fan, as well as the switch to turn the pilot off.
We replaced a wood-burning fireplace with a natural gas fireplace last year, and we love it. It’s in our lower-level family room, which tends to get quite chilly in the winter. With the fireplace, it makes that room inhabitable again with the flick of a switch.
Get the thermostat option (ours has a remote control) and then it will turn itself off when it gets too warm.
I don’t think I’d put one in every room (even if I could afford it), but it would be nice to have one in the living room (directly above the family room–no fireplace exists there now). That would be more for atmosphere and less for heat.
Ventless gas fireplaces are illegal in Minnesota. Apparently, there is a greater carbon monoxide risk. You’ll want a CO detector with the gas furnace anyway, but be careful.
I had a ventless NG fireplace installed in the large LR of my '60’s (i.e., not at all tight) Georgian colonial in the southern United States. It was relatively inexpensive, looks good, and is efficient because ALL the heat stays in the house. If the house is cold, we can warm up the LR in a hurry with the fireplace and lie on the bearskin. It has a built-in CO detector/shutoff. It does shut off after a half hour or so but has never set off my separate CO detector.
But I wouldn’t use one in a tight house or a small room and I wouldn’t install more than one per 100 square meters.
