Pros & Cons of Different Types of Fireplaces

Fireplaces often serve as a focal point inside a room. Whether an eco-friendly ethanol fireplace or traditional wood-burning one, fireplaces add value to your home and enhance your space. Selecting the proper fireplace may be challenging. Here are the pros and cons of different kinds of fireplaces.

Wood-burning fireplaces

Wood-burning fireplaces are the most traditional and oldest option of fireplaces, valued for their appearance. You cannot beat the sound, smell, and look of a wood fire.

But, its biggest asset also is its biggest liability. A wood fireplace requires storing logs somewhere or going to the store occasionally for a night’s supply.

This kind of fireplace has the most upkeep, and requires maintenance of its chimney and cleaning ash out from the fireplace.

A wood-burning fireplace spits out burning embers; therefore, screens are necessary to ensure safe use. Lastly, a wood-burning fireplace might lose more heat up the chimney than created. It may be altered with components added to your fireplace to reduce air movement up its flue.

If your fireplace features a gas starter, you easily can convert wood over to gas by adding some gas logs.

As a wood fireplace needs a chimney, it may be extremely costly and occasionally impossible to retrofit your house with one.

Gas fireplaces

A gas fireplace burns natural gas rather than wood. A vented gas fireplace is built a lot like a traditional wood-burning fireplace, with a firebox that is vented through a chimney. A vented fireplace allows the biggest variety of burning components, ranging from ceramic logs which have the look of real embers and burning logs to more modern-day flames which lick up via glass beads. Those fireplaces easily are converted to a wood-burning fireplace.

There are a couple of other kinds of gas fireplaces: ventless fireplaces and direct vent fireplaces. A direct vent fireplace draws air from outdoors and does not require a flue or chimney. Its flame is behind glass. A direct vent fireplace emits a large quantity of heat and does not lose warm air up a flue.

A ventless fireplace has no venting, meaning it may be placed against an internal wall so long as gas may be brought to the location. A ventless fireplace combusts indoor air and releases a small amount of combustion gas into the room. It’s possible because the flames very cleanly burn without having to create carbon monoxide. All of the heat from ventless units stay inside the house.

Gas models are simple to use, and only require the push of a switch to turn them on and off.

Electric fireplaces

An electric fireplace is simple to incorporate into a space. All that’s needed to do is follow the directions concerning placement and plug one inside an outlet. This kind of fireplace is about function.

An electric fireplace comes in an array of designs that fit with any style and offer an excellent method of improving the environment of your house without a big budget.

Ethanol fireplaces

An ethanol fireplace is among the newest additions to the technology of fireplaces, yet has an increasing following.

The flame needs no venting, meaning ethanol fireplaces may be used almost any place in the home. An ethanol fireplace offers less heat than a gas fireplace, yet may generate as high as 13,000 Btu, which isn’t insignificant. An ethanol fireplace requires refilling. Correct use is safe, yet ethanol is flammable; therefore, you have to be cautious refilling this kind of fireplace.