We live in a house that is 100 years old, and it has the original wood-burning fireplace. It's never been fiddled with, but we'd been talking about installing one of those gas-fueled, push-button gizmos that look quite realistic.
Now, it seems, these expensive improvements are becoming something a prospective buyer is going to think about needing to pay to replace. Or will they think, great, the gas fireplace is grandfathered in?
I think I prefer the traditional wood-burning fireplace, but we don't use it, because it pollutes the indoor air. You can smell the smoke. I know there are these wood-burning stove inserts, but I think they're too utilitarian and clunky to belong in the living room. And you have to look into the stove to see the fire.
The article suggests an electric fireplace, but it's got 2 big problems: It's not warm — only about 5,000 BTUs compared to 20,000 BTUs for gas and 100,000 for wood — and it's not fire. It's just LED light bulbs that supposedly look like fire. You might as well put a TV screen in there and play Yule log video on a loop. It would be more honest. And you could also use it to watch TV shows. And then you wouldn't be tempted to hang a TV on the wall above the fireplace where it looks awful and everyone has to crane their neck to watch. Multiple problems solved!
ADDED: I had to reconstruct this post after accidentally writing over it. I think it's close to the original now. And I wanted to link to this Reddit discussion of gas vs. wood from a couple years ago:
Dude. Once you use the gas fireplace one time you will never light a wood fire again. My two fireplaces each use a remote control. You got home to change clothes in the master bedroom real quick before going out again? Click. Woomf Roaring fire. 5 minutes later? Click. Fade. Fire's out, you can leave. You want to let it run for hours? No problem. You want it to run 5 minutes? Done. Sit down to read a book and wan[t] a fire? Woomf. Kid calls from school and needs a ride? Click. You can leave.
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I thought the left was against wood burning ? I have both types of fireplaces in my home. We use the gas fireplace ALL THE TIME, and the wood burning very rarely...like when Super Storm Sandy came through, and we had no power for over 2 weeks. Gas is easy, and no mess.
Mental illness seems more contagious than COVID. An anti-natural gas movement.
I guessed I missed the poll showing Americans wanted to ban natural gas. Surely WaPo wouldn’t make such a claim without evidence. Those that poll also show a preference to electric fireplaces? If I wanted heat from electricity, wouldn’t a central air system be more efficient? Why have a fireplace that is not a place for a fire?
Coal-burning fireplaces! Back in the day, when I was growing up in Mountaineer country, we kept warm huddled in front of the eerie blue glow of coal burning. On especially cold nights we slept on a rug close to the hearth because the upstairs bedrooms were unheated.
Yeah, coal left a smell, but that was a small price to pay for warmth. Almost Heaven, indeed.
Have the environmentalists ever survived on burning wood as heat? It's a stone age existence. These are people who set their Nest thermostat without any knowledge of how their house is heated and turn on their vanity fireplace without needing it to provide real warmth.
I know my fireplace pollutes a little, I can smell it when I come in the house from the snowy cold, but I like it. Humans have been sitting around wood fires for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't live in a city, though. If I smell my neighbor's woodsmoke, it's seldom more than a quick pleasant whiff if the wind is exactly right.
Do these bozos have any idea how much CARBON a wood-burning stove emits?
I thought that was a bad thing.
Why have the high priests suddenly decided that natural gas--the stuff that has caused the US to lower its carbon emissions (which are are supposedly threatening worldwide climactic catastrophe)?
Q: What did socialists use before candles?
A: Electricity.
Civilization sometimes seem to be de-evolving right in front of us. How many generations before our electrical grid is no better than third-world and those that are left are wondering how it all went so wrong.
In Madison a fireplace is going to be a feature for at least a couple of generations. Don't get sucked into the angst of the coastal elites. Its easy for Seattle to ban gas in new construction, but Seattle doesn't go a week with High Temps not exceeding 0F. Your home sells for the location alone. All minus features are cancelled by the location. Walking distance to Campus right?
Your analysis of fireplace, wood, gas, electric is spot on. Add one feature for gas. Supplemental heat when the electricity goes off.
We have the framing done on a small addition of a sun room, overlooking our back yard. All glass, not enough wall space to hang a family picture. Climate control with a mini split unit. plus the aesthetics and supplemental heat of a gas stove.
Sunday morning we were out of bed about 5, and had 6 deer bedded down in our lawn, a few days before that, about 20 wild turkeys strolled through. So we built an expensive viewing blind to enjoy all the wild life.
Along the lines of electric heating, we get periodic energy usage comparison reports from our utility provider. I call it the Energy Shaming Report because they compare my usage to the average neighbors'. Ours is slightly above the average so they rated me as 'Fair.'
Since our apartment is locked into electric baseboard heating, energy use goes way up during the cold months and our bills are sometimes triple what they are during fall and spring.
Seeing the problems in CA with more EVs on the road, phasing out of gas ovens, heating, etc., makes me think that this move is another upcoming failure of wrong-headed overregulation.
Get the gas fireplace. You and Meade will love it. Don’t procrastinate. Act today!
Natural gas heats my home, dries my clothes, cooks my food and makes my hot water. In the shoulder seasons it heats my pool. Oh, and I almost forgot, it is what I burn in my fireplace. But, it seems my home will soon be worthless. Hopefully there will be a fully electric powered bulldozer available so I can level it and start anew.
An "electric fireplace" is just a hair dryer with pretty lights.
Truth be told, most fireplace chimneys aren't fit for wood burning either. By products of wood burning are very corrosive. If a chimney is not lined properly there could be trouble. If it is lined properly the liner joints are struck with refractory type mortar, not the mortar that is used on the bricks.
Natural gas is God's gift to us all.
--- "experts explain"
I am adding that to my prayers from now on. Dear God, please let there be no experts in heaven.
An issue that may have been settled long, long ago, I suspect.
Growing pressure to ban natural gas?
It's manufactured pressure. And it's only found on the left, who constantly forget that they do not represent the majority of humanity. Just the most destructive part.
I don't think it is cheaper to convert a wood fireplace to gas, than to leave the existing fireplace alone and put the gas one in another location. The main determination would be the site of the existing fireplace and potential alternate locations. Some locations might be better, due to where existing gas lines are run.
So, if you've got a better place for a gas fireplace, put it there. The benefit is that you keep the (valuable to some) wood burning fireplace.
In our home, we have a wood burning fireplace that we hardly ever use, for wood fires. Instead, we keep a portable charcoal grill inside the fireplace and use it for when the weather is cold, or if it's dark outside. The benefit is that it uses far less charcoal than the big outdoor grill.
We have a gas fireplace in a 3rd floor addition. I've attached a programmable thermostat and it easily heats the entire floor. The room it's in, I use as a home office and I keep the main, bedroom part of the addition, closed off during the day--when nobody is occupying that area.
Down in the basement, we have a wood stove, which won't heat the entire house, but takes some of the load off of the gas furnace. If the timing is right, I bring the portable grill to the basement, fill it up with live coals, bring it back to the wood fireplace and then grill. This saves me some time and charcoal.
I thought banning gas in homes was a culture-war issue ginned up by Republicans with no foundation in fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia I guess.
As for wood-burning, the argument is that a new tree to replace the one you burned would capture the same amount carbon in growing as was released by the burned one. True, but this means that you can't burn trees faster than they grow if you want to have carbon-neutral heat.
This is quite aside from the pollution caused by burning wood. Burning wood is illegal already in lots of the places that would ban your gas fireplace.
Ann, they actually make inserts for your fireplace for wood-burning stoves with glass fronts that allow you to enjoy both the warmth and the view. They are a lot more efficient at heating, as they draw much less of your interior warm air out of the house, and provide a nice warm heat. You will still get a little smoky flavor to the air, but it will be much reduced. Perfect for sitting in the living room sipping good whiskey on those cold Wisconsin nights!
Where does the combustion air for your fireplace come from?
Unless it’s outside, then your fireplace is just a pretty way to make your house colder. The air that goes up the chimney is replaced by pulling in cold outside air.
Gabriel said...
"I thought banning gas in homes was a culture-war issue ginned up by Republicans with no foundation in fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia I guess."
And yet it's always Democrats that shut down drilling and exploration.
As I look in my back yard I can see a couple of cords just laying on the ground.
"This is quite aside from the pollution caused by burning wood. Burning wood is illegal already in lots of the places that would ban your gas fireplace."
Oh, yeah? Where?
This will really make you shit your pants. A lot of places burn waste oil for heat. You know? When you go in for an oil change they take the waste oil and burn it. Motor oil. Transmission oil. Any petroleum product they have sitting around. It's a very efficient way to dispose of waste oil.
Gabriel said...
"I thought banning gas in homes was a culture-war issue ginned up by Republicans with no foundation in fact. We have always been at war with Eurasia I guess."
And yet it's always Democrats that shut down drilling and exploration.
As I look in my back yard I can see a couple of cords just laying on the ground.
"This is quite aside from the pollution caused by burning wood. Burning wood is illegal already in lots of the places that would ban your gas fireplace."
Oh, yeah? Where?
This will really make you shit your pants. A lot of places burn waste oil for heat. You know? When you go in for an oil change they take the waste oil and burn it. Motor oil. Transmission oil. Any petroleum product they have sitting around. It's a very efficient way to dispose of waste oil.
"Ann, they actually make inserts for your fireplace for wood-burning stoves with glass fronts that allow you to enjoy both the warmth and the view."
Link to something that looks good. I have checked out a lot of options and it all seemed like too much bulky crap to belong in the living room. I like an old time wood stove in a kitchen/dining area in a log cabin or something, but I don't see the point in the living room. We have heat in the house. It's just a matter of feeling happy and cozy. So the thing has to look right or it's pointless.
"... inserts for your fireplace for wood-burning stoves with glass fronts..."
Our fireplace is fairly big and has an arch shape, so I don't want a lot of panels just blocking in the space. I want something that is still a fireplace.
"Unless it’s outside, then your fireplace is just a pretty way to make your house colder. The air that goes up the chimney is replaced by pulling in cold outside air."
Yes, this is another reason why we never build a fire.
We converted our natural fireplace to a gas insert out of necessity. When we had our 1988 home inspected the previous owners basically burned out the fireplace. They used it to heat the home exclusively with a heatalater. But, they NEVER cleaned the fireplace not even once. There was a layer of creosote so thick it was difficult to remove. In order to have the fireplace and chimney properly inspected, it had to be cleaned. The chimney sweep stated, it had NEVER been cleaned - not even once! He basically was removing the terracotta liner when he was cleaning it. The inspector noted they had a chimney fire and the whole fireplace and chimney were basically ruined and could not be used. So our choice was to tear it all out and start over for around 10,000.00 or put in a super efficient gas insert for about half of that. Which we did. It heats the room very nicely and looks very real. My wife likes it because it doesn't smell of campfire, though I would prefer a wood burning fire place since we live in a hard wood forest and the fuel is basically free. Found out later from our neighbors that the previous owners burned their first house down with a chimney fire. Go figure. Why were they so adverse to cleaning the fireplace and chimney?
Another problem with gas is that I have almost no sense of smell. I feel that I am vulnerable in the case of a gas leak.
i don't have a fireplace, so this ain't my fight.
i have a wood pellet burning stove.
It has a glass window, so you can see the flames: nice
It uses wood pellets made from saw dust left over from lumber mills, so no additional trees cut
It uses an fan to intake air for the fire, so always good draft, and no inside air wasted
It runs the exhaust through a heat exchanger, that takes So Much heat out of the exhaust, that the chimney is (literally!) a clothes dryer pipe. SUPER Efficient !
It has another fan, that blows inside air through the heat exchanger and out into the room.
It has a hopper for the pellets, and screw feed, so no adding pellets to the fire
A 40# bag of pellets costs about $6, and lasts for about an entire day of use (or, several part days)
Am i saying it's Great? YES, Yes i am. Only downside, is you have to have electric for the fans and feeder.
Leland said...
I guessed I missed the poll showing Americans wanted to ban natural gas. Surely WaPo wouldn’t make such a claim without evidence.
where ARE these polls? Where are the polls that say
Americans DON'T want voter id?
Americans Don't want natural gas?
Americans Don't want fireplaces?
Americans Don't want gasoline engines?
The democrats tell us WE want a bunch of things, where ARE these polls?
I've seen the movie. A few times. And there are some good lessons to be learned in those stories.
Don't punch the tar baby.
And PLEASE don't throw Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.
GAH!
I accidentally wrote over this post, and I didn't keep the text and can't seem to recover it with archive.com or Google cache
If you happen to have it open and can copy it and send it to me at annalthouse@gmail.com I would greatly appreciate it
Wood stoves were banned in mountain communities in Colorado more than 20 years ago. Our local county paid us to convert our wood burning fireplace to gas. The rationalization at the time was to save the environment.
Converting was the best thing we ever did. Gas is so much cleaner both for the air and the house. Also, you don't have to leave the flu open at night to wake up to a very cold house in the winter.
We have gas (propane) heat, water heater, and stove. We supplement our heat with a wood stove in the living room. Why do these people hate us?
@Rusty:This will really make you shit your pants...
The person you are addressing exists only in your imagination. It's clear that a few words in to what I wrote you decided what "side" you thought I was on, and then you assumed that I agreed with everything that you attribute to the people on that "side". But I didn't actually say any of things you apparently think I believe.
I am not against wood stoves or gas stoves or fireplaces, I'm aware that waste oil gets burned for heat, and I think your irony detector needs some calibration. Normally when you say "we've always been at war with Eurasia" people recognize that you are calling out that someone has changed positions 180 degrees very suddenly. In this case, the people writing articles about how to get rid of your evil gas fireplace were only last week saying that the prospect of banning gas stoves was a culture-war issue ginned up by Republicans, and the week before that were talking about how banning gas stoves would be such a good thing.
Oh, yeah? Where?
Google must be down in your area?
@gilbar:Only downside, is you have to have electric for the fans and feeder.
They make pellet stoves without fan or feeder but they are sensitive to the pellets you burn in them.
“If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry, you will also regret it; if you marry or do not marry, you will regret both; Laugh at the world’s follies, you will regret it, weep over them, you will also regret that; laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, you will regret both; whether you laugh at the world’s follies or weep over them, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it, believe her not, you will also regret that; believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both; whether you believe a woman or believe her not, you will regret both. Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will also regret that; hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the sum and substance of all philosophy.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Do I regret never having read Kierkegaard or do I regret knowing as much as I do about Kierkegaard without having read him? Probably both. I would also regret having read him or not knowing anything about him if either of those was the case.
Smoke from a chimney is bad juju where I live. It's been great for bats.
“Have the environmentalists ever survived on burning wood as heat? It's a stone age existence. These are people who set their Nest thermostat without any knowledge of how their house is heated and turn on their vanity fireplace without needing it to provide real warmth.”
Where’s the wood going to come from? We spend the warmer half the year in NW MT, which was, and should be, the perfect place for wood stoves. West of us for most of a hundred miles, and east of us for ten miles, is a forest of huge tree, many well over 100’ tall: pine, fir, spruce, larch, etc. two hundred years ago, it took Canadian explorers better than a week to do the trek from the west on horseback. It was so bad that they had to eat some of the horses along the way. The main business in town, up to 20 years ago (under the Clinton USFS) was lumber. There were maybe 4 lumber mills in town - now there is one, thanks to the Democrats. Now, the biggest part of their budget goes to fighting wild fires that resulted from that policy change.
Much of the town has yet to be converted to gas from wood. There is plenty of wood available. The USFS gives residents a generous supply of firewood permits. Many of those heating their homes with firewood spend much of their summer putting away the firewood for the winter. It can take a lot of it. There is one majestic historic home, maybe 3k sq ft, that ends up with better than 100’ of firewood stacked 6’ high along the edge of the property. If it weren’t on the historic registry, I thought of buying it and converting it to gas, but, being on the registry means that you can’t. The quantity of wood required scared me off. Firewood is nowhere near cheap, despite almost free USFS firewood permits, and thick forests as far as you can see, because you can only harvest dead and diseased trees, and then haul them out, sometimes for decent distances.
Cold snaps, with no wind, and the air quality quickly drops to the level we experience in fire season in the summer (sometimes hazardous and above). Those cold snaps with no wind outside town often have that white background, against a dark blue sky that I so love. Not in town though, where the soot is so bad from the fireplaces. And that is in a town of 1500 with maybe half the houses still using wood for heating. Imagine a city as big as Madison. The other thing is fire anger. You should clean your chimneys regularly, but not everyone does. There are houses in town where the FD has to respond regularly, maybe a couple times a month in the coldest parts of the winter.
The whole idea, of switching to 19th century heating technology is idiotic. Air quality in most cities was abysmal back then. Very similar to what we experienced with that wildfire that burned through north of town two years ago. One thing is for sure, if Madison goes big time for 19th century (or earlier) heating technology, Ann isn’t going to be going on her morning walks and runs anymore. Just too unhealthy. A couple houses of eco sensitive college professors is probably fine. But not if most everyone is forced to switch back.
“Wood stoves were banned in mountain communities in Colorado more than 20 years ago. Our local county paid us to convert our wood burning fireplace to gas. The rationalization at the time was to save the environment.”
Don’t forget air quality. I can remember how bad it would get in some of those CO mountain communities back when there was a lot of wood heating. The one I thought of first of was Montezuma, up a valley from Keystone, in Summit County (we would go up there to ski in the backcountry, starting in maybe 1970 or so). It’s located near the end of that valley, right up against the Continental Divide to the east. Never much population, but there were times, in the winter, when there would be haze over the town.
"Do I regret never having read Kierkegaard or do I regret knowing as much as I do about Kierkegaard without having read him? Probably both. I would also regret having read him or not knowing anything about him if either of those was the case."
Ha ha.
But do you regret skimming him? I think maybe not, because that was the easiest thing to skim (that was actually profound).
Last winter we installed a propane unit in our brick (wood burning) fireplace that we had never used even once in 15 yrs of living here. I cannot tell you how much we enjoy it. Think cozy evenings by the fire. I have never used this phrase before but I WILL say - they will get the remote to it when they pry it from my COLD DEAD HANDS.
(We already had propane in the house for cooking so it was an easy modification.)
(ps @Ann Althouse, I wonder if there is a monitor you can get that would monitor for leaks in place of your ability to smell, sort of like a carbon monoxide detector, which is odorless. I would look into that. The fireplace is amazing, we should have done it years ago.)
@Chris: I suspect the previous owners were not averse to cleaning the chimney, but rather they were clueless. One cannot assume that this bit of common sense is all that common any longer.
I would bet most houses in SF are all on natural gas. Certainly, in my neighborhood, where the houses are basically row houses built from the mid-1930s to post-WW2. The houses also have small fireplaces in the living rooms which probably get used only in December/January when it's damp and cold. We keep ours filled with candles and have been using it a lot given our rainy weather. It's just enough to make the room cozy. Since the temperatures here usually range between 45 - 65 degrees all year round, the gas bill is pretty reasonable, despite the lack of insulation that's the norm elsewhere. I think it would be much different if it were all electric, but then, it's PG&E so who knows....
I grew up with wood burning stoves and the idea of having to haul wood up to the living area and then sweep out ash and charcoal is not appealing. Plus, it leaves a film on everything and coats the curtains in a fine layer.
This sudden tactic of making natural gas a health concern is just another notch in the post towards all of us non-elites being cold, hungry, living in dark hovels, owning nothing and liking it.
Ah, I foresee the return to the good old days of Jimmy Carter in his ridiculous sweater, telling us to bundle up and turn the thermostats down in our homes because his foreign policy was nonexistent as OPEC transferred trillions of US dollars to themselves. I recall the small electric heaters under office desks, plugged into the office electric outlets, keeping office workers from frostbite while the company dutifully declared themselves as environmentally progressive for chilling their employees. Maybe we can get some of that double digit inflation for a few years, too, to weed out more employment and kill GDP growth. I suspect I won't feel young again, however.
Count Rumsford, designer of effective heating by fireplaces, is spinning in his grave.
Modern fireplaces are much better than ye olde 1800's tech. With smoke reburner zones or catalytic converters to burn the smoke before it goes up the chimney, your cresote load drops considerably and you get much more heat. Get an outside air intake.
Look, wood burning in today's world has two advantages: Self sufficiency is the main one. You can heat and cook with a wood burning stove (not an insert), even when no power or gas is available. And of course it's much cozier to curl up in front of the fire rather than a radiator or a baseboard.
Disadvantages are time, effort to stack and cut wood, and making sure you clean your chimney. It's also much harder to light and maintain a fire rather than flip a thermostat. So I would use it as a second or third tier heating system, a backup. But be very glad I had the option.
My home is 50 years old. I have a wood-burning fireplace (fed by natural gas to do away with the need for kindling). I live in California. It's a nice house on a quarter-acre lot with a pool, cathedral ceilings with floor to ceiling windows, and a view of the Santa Monica Mountains.
And I'm beginning to think that, when the time comes to sell, the legacy fireplace is going to be the major attraction.
Converted living room fireplace from wood to gas (propane; sadly, we can't get natural gas on our street). Use a woodstove to heat the basement. Hedge: have multiple sources of heat so if one kind goes down you can use another. The controller for a gas fireplace can run on AA batteries if the power is out, so you can heat at least one room to comfortable temps. Gas fireplace for the living room is good because (a) it doesn't suck massive amounts of air out of the room, so its efficient in heating (b) no risk of throwing sparks out onto the rug (c) don't have to drag firewood through the living room and end up with lots of dirt and debris. Gas fireplaces also now look MUCH more realistic than they used to: there are clever tricks that cycle the flames, light amber-colored glass beads from below to look like coals, and include bits of fiber insulation that look exactly like burning embers as the tiny glow and flames on their edges shifts from white to red to blue.
In terms of worrying about a gas leak and not smelling it: there are small plug-in alarms that you can put in an outlet in the same room as the fireplace. If any gas gets out, they make a very loud noise and flash lights. The plumbers who did the piping for the fireplace had a little spray canister to test the gas alarm, and it came on almost instantly even though they sprayed the gas at the other end of the room and I could not smell it until after the alarm went off. I would not worry about the safety issue if you have one of those alarms and test or replace it once a year.
You should put a TV in the fireplace and let it play a continuous loop of Biden sitting in front of that ridiculous gas fire that you posted here recently.
Just turn the volume down on the TV. You don't want to listen to that doddering fool.
You should put a TV in the fireplace and let it play a continuous loop of Biden sitting in front of that ridiculous gas fire that you posted here recently.
Just turn the volume down on the TV. You don't want to listen to that doddering fool.
Will Gov Newsome patronize the French Laundry is they're using gas to cook his food?
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