Why wood is out
While certified woodstoves and inserts have cleaned up considerably with scrubbers and catalytic converters, in older homes the original inefficient (but romantic) open-flame masonry fireplace can be used only a few days a year.
The labor involved in chopping, splitting, drying, hauling and lighting firewood also has made burning-wood fireplaces impractical for today's lifestyles.
Add to that the inconvenience and expense of creosote removal (chimney sweeping) and ash cleanup, and you can see why all but the most die-hard wood-burners have converted to gas, which has none of those issues.
In addition, gas fireplaces require no hearth, a valuable bit of real estate in condos and smaller rooms.
Advances in gas-fireplace efficiency, ignition systems and their ensuing ubiquity in newer homes have fueled conversions from wood-burning to gas, with inserts, open flame conversions, fully sealed combustion, horizontally venting units, unvented and stand-alone gas fireplaces (stoves) all taking a share of the market.
The type of conversion or installation available to a particular application is dependent on the age of the home, the existing fireplace structure and many other variables.
These questions are best addressed specifically for your home by a fireplace shop.
Those without gas service may be able to convert to propane. That's another question best addressed by a fireplace dealer.
The basics
Gas fireplaces originally were manually lighted. The burner spewed gas into the air when the valve was turned on, with nothing stopping the inexperienced from creating, well, a firebomb off an unlit Bunsen burner. Typically found in converted masonry fireplaces, they are very inefficient but provide instant romance at the turn of a switch and the spark of a match.
The burners are wide open, so inadvertently moving the ceramic log can cause the flame to become impinged (dirty sooty exhaust is the result).
Adding a pilot light to the open burner provided a measure of safety, but still forced the operator to reach into the flame area.
This style requires the damper be permanently bolted partially open for the pilot flame's exhaust, eliminating much or all of the heat gain. Adding operable glass doors helps, but the bulk of the heat gain is through radiation, not convection like the newer units.
Sealed combustion units were introduced several years ago and have become popular. These require no interior air for combustion and, more importantly, need no chimney.
Equipped with manually operated pilots at first, later they were equipped with wall switches for operation and circulating blower fans to get the heat into the room quicker.
Despite being connected to what looks like an electrical wall switch, these fireplaces work when the power is out.
Adding a thermostat to this fireplace is simple as well. Flame height controls on most units allow the user to control the heat output.
Advances in ignition systems have resulted in the latest trick: electronic ignition (with battery backup for when the power is out) and remote controls, for the laziest of us.
Unvented fireplaces boast 100 percent efficiency but have not caught on like vented units due to concerns about exhaust and moisture in the home. While many of these issues have been worked out, concerns linger.
Electric revived
Blasphemous as it may sound, electric fireplaces have been making a comeback.
Complete with electronically controlled flame and color, adjustable crackling sound and conventional electric heaters inside, these bogus fireplaces can make for a little bit of Disneyland in the room.
And yes, they are considerably improved over the electric fireplaces of the 1970s, with the waving orange paper behind the glass — which, thank goodness, are virtually extinct.
Darrell Hay is a local home inspector and manages several rental properties. |
