Factors to Consider When Upgrading Your Fireplace

If you have an older traditional fireplace, you may have noticed your heating costs increasing each year. Unfortunately, these older fireplaces just are not very efficient. In fact, the majority of heat they produce exits out of the chimney, which causes you to use more supplemental heating appliances to keep your home warm, cozy, and comfortable. You may be thinking about upgrading your fireplace to a more efficient fireplace insert. At Home Safe Hearth & Chimney, we sell and install fireplace inserts of every fuel type: wood, gas, pellet, and electricity. To find the best insert for your home, you should consider the different factors of each fuel type. We would like to tell you about the advantages and disadvantages of gas, wood, and pellet fireplace inserts to help you decide what will work best in your home.

GAS FIREPLACE INSERTS

If convenience and ease of use is important to you, you may be interested in gas fireplace inserts. With one of these heating appliances, you can start the fire by using a remote control from your couch. If you have trouble starting fires from wood, you will love being able to push a button or flip a switch to get a fire going in the fireplace. You will not have to deal with chores such as bringing in firewood or sweeping up ashes when you use a gas fireplace insert, although you will need to have your insert serviced annually to be sure it is working safely and efficiently. Gas inserts have efficiency ratings of 58 to 85 percent, according to HouseLogic. This means you get more heat with less pollution. Honestly, the only disadvantage of a gas fireplace insert is you do not get the sensory experiences you get from burning wood, and for some people, this can be a deal breaker.

WOOD FIREPLACE INSERTS

For those who love the sensory experiences of burning wood, a new wood fireplace insert can greatly improve the heating efficiency of your home with efficiency ratings from 60 to 80 percent. Newer technology allows these inserts to burn wood more effectively and cleanly. You will find wood fireplace inserts that are equipped with fans and blowers that will circulate the heat produced from the fire throughout your home. To operate at its optimum efficiency rating, Home Safe Hearth & Chimney can install a new wood fireplace insert into your old masonry fireplace. The disadvantages of this type of insert include having to bring in firewood from outdoor storage and cleaning up ashy residue after every fire.

PELLET FIREPLACE INSERTS

If you are environmentally conscious, you may want to choose a pellet fireplace insert because not only do they burn more cleanly than wood inserts, but they also use pellets made from recycled wood shavings as fuel. You will not need as much storage for bags of pellets as you do for firewood, and these inserts are very easy to use as you load the hopper with pellets, set the thermostat, and turn the insert on. Among the disadvantages of pellet fireplace inserts are the need for electricity to operate, the weekly cleaning maintenance tasks, and the price of pellets.

To learn more about the different fuel options of fireplace inserts, contact us at Home Safe Hearth & Chimney. Our experienced staff can go into more details of the benefits and drawbacks of each fuel type and help you decide which type of insert is best for your home.