How To Choose A Gas Fireplace


Gas fireplaces provide a lot of advantages over wood burning fireplaces. With wood you have to have a place for storage, you have to go out in the cold to get more wood and you have to worry about it going out in the middle of the night. And, if you purchase fresh wood, it needs to sit for around a year to get properly seasoned for burning.

You can purchase either propane or natural gas fireplaces that have logs that look just like wood. The logs will be housed inside a firebox and there’s usually a glass front on the stove. You can just turn a switch to start the fire and have instant heat.

Gas is a lot cleaner than wood, there’s no ashes or chips of wood to clean up. Gas is also much more energy efficient than wood. And, you never have to worry about not having heat is the electric goes off like you do with heat pumps or furnaces.

There are several basic types of gas fireplaces to choose from, free standing, factory built and inserts. Free standing fireplaces are the most effective of the three. Since they aren’t placed against a wall, the room receives heat from all sides of the fireplace.

Factory built fireplaces are usually installed when the home is being built or if major renovations are done. And, if you already have an existing fireplace that you want to convert to gas, inserts can be installed. They’re just placed inside the fireplace and no major construction is required inside the home.

If you do choose to install gas burining inserts, you will need to have your chimney relined. You will also need to make sure that you have a approved vent installed so that fumes don’t escape into the home. You can install gas fireplaces yourself, but it’s much safer to have a experienced professional do the job.

Before purchasing a gas fireplace, make sure that you check the government rating labels. Modern fireplaces are much more energy efficient than they once were, but some will still provide you with a much better savings on your gas bill than others.

There are several features to look for to make sure that you get the most energy efficient gas fireplace. Choose one that is direct vented, it will save energy and also be safer. A fireplace that is equipped with an automatic starter will use less gas than one that has a pilot light.

A fireplace that has a circulating fan will force the heat out into the room. It will help the fireplace keep a larger area nice and warm. Try to choose a stove that has a ceramic glass front instead of one that is made of tempered glass. Ceramic transmits heat much better and it’s also shatter resistant.

Fireplace units that are equipped with a secondary heat exchanger provide a lot more heat than units without them. And, one of the most important features for saving energy is a variable control. A fireplace that has a variable control gives you the option of regulating the amount of gas used by adjusting the temperature.

Some variable controls only allow you to adjust to around 70% while others will give you more control in adjusting it to 20%. And, if you’d like to heat more than just one room with the fireplace, make sure that it can be connected into the duct work.

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