Gas Inserts are all the rage!

As I write this it is another cold winter day in Michigan where the wind is blowing and high temp of the day is a balmy 18℉ with wind chill figured in it feels like is 0℉ out today.  The furnace is running plenty but when you sit in your home you can feel the cold seeping in through the glass on the window and around every crack around the door and walls and floor just seem to be cold - cold to their bones. 

And if your home is like many other homes that a wood fireplace built into it you may be thinking “tonight is a great time to make a fire”.  So you collect some wood and kindling, open your damper, start a small fire and smoke seems to blow back in your face for a while until the chimney flue warms up and starts to draw the heat out.  You add some more logs to your now growing fire go back outside to the seldom used wood pile, brush off some snow and shaking from the cold bring in another arm full of wood. Adding this to the fire you look around and notice that you now have quit a bit of mess on the floor and hearth that need to be cleaned up before you sit down.

Once you do sit down you admire your beautiful fire and wait to be warmed by it’s glow.  As you sit there though you begin to wonder why are you not as warm as you thought you might be so you go over and throw a few more logs on the fire and again sit back waiting to be warmed by the glow of the fire. 

It sure is a lot of work and your actually not as warm as you would like to be because when you warm up your chimney flue and open the damper you begin to draw or “suck” around 180,000 BTU’s of heat an hour out of your home.  If you don’t know what BTU’s are basically it is equal to about 2 furnaces dumping all their heat out your window and not in your home.  So the heat you are making can’t keep up with the heat you are losing. Combine that with the work of making the fire and clean up and it is no wonder that I hear all the time - “we only use the fireplace on holidays or maybe once or twice a year”. 

So in comes a gas insert.  A direct vent gas insert is a 100% sealed unit.  We slide a firebox into your existing fireplace opening, connect it to two chimney liners that are run all the way up your existing chimney to a new concentric chimney cap (the top of your chimney is sealed from weather, drafts, and critters).  One liner is for air intake for the fire the other is for the exhaust gasses. The gas insert is then finished off with a faceplate that covers up the remaining space of the old wood fireplace and cleans up the installation.

Your insert is connected to your natural or LP gas source and power to finish up the installation.  What you see are beautiful logs and glowing embers and a lively flame that looks almost like the real wood fire you had before but the difference is now we are not losing all our precious heat up the chimney.  These gas inserts have heat exchangers built into them for high heat transfer, blowers, remote controls with built in thermostats they will heat your room to the exact temperature you want and even work without power.  

And there is no mess! Flip the remote on and your're all done. The comments I get now are “I almost never used the fireplace before and now I use it every night!” 

Don’t let your fireplace sit there not being used give us a call to get your FREE quote today.