Natural Gas/Propane Inserts for Existing Fireplace

[Rancher Ed]

I grew up with a wood stove and have almost no experience with fireplaces or gas inserts so I am looking for people's experience and recommendations.

BACKGROUND
I have a two story house built in the late 1970s connected to natural gas. The big family room is open to the second floor and has a brick fireplace with an exterior chimney. Either when the house was built or sometime later gas was piped into the fireplace and is pared with some ceramic logs. The thermostat is upstairs and does a great job keeping the bedrooms warm, but on cold winter days the family room is noticeably cooler than upstairs. The current gas setup looks great and does help with the warmth, but you have to manually turn on the gas with a key and light it with long handled lighter, plus most of the heat goes up the open chimney.

I have sealed the ceiling/attic pretty well and blown in 14-18" of fiberglass insulation (a vast improvement from the many holes venting air into the attic and 0-6" of insulation when we bought the house). The house has the original single-pane windows which we will hopefully be replacing in the next year or two. I know the high ceiling plus single pane windows both work against this room being pleasantly warm in the winder. Our summers have highs around 100 and winter lows are typically 30s and 40s with at least a couple weeks in the 20s.

GAS INSERTS
My thought is a gas insert would provide more heat with less gas, be easier for my wife to use, and better seal the chimney all year. I've done a little looking and believe I would want the kind that exhausts out the chimney rather than directly into the room. I know some inserts require electricity for ignition, fans, etc. and can even have a thermostat. I can run power to the fireplace if that is the better choice. During cold stretches in the winter we will likely use the fireplace/insert every day, turning it off at night, but there are also weeks we don't use it at all.

QUESTIONS
1. Which type of gas insert would you recommend and why?
2. Are there specific brands and/or models you would recommend?
3. What features are important vs which ones are marketing gimmicks?
4. Other suggestions I haven't thought about?

Attached is a picture of the fireplace with the existing metal screen in front of it and fall decorations. The opening is about 34" wide x 27" tall. I haven't measured the depth but I would guess it is 18-24" deep, and the sides taper so it isn't as wide at the back.

 

[RNeumann]

I would take the time to run power to it and get one that can be run off the thermostat or at least a switch. A lot of the new ones can be controlled with a remote.

You will need to find one that can vent up your existing chimney. A lot are designed for horizontal venting. Typically they are sealed units and need combustion air. Make sure that’s factored into the prep.

Find models you like. All the ones I’ve seen have online installation manuals. Those will provide clearances, maximum chimney length, combustion or make-up air specs etc. That will help narrow down your choices.

 

[Ritothebull]

I would check to see if you have a decent fireplace company in your area, I have an outfit near me that has been around for years that did a gas fireplace and outdoor BBQ at my last house and they really know their business. They are one of the few companies around that I would recommend to anyone.

 

[Jack Murdock]

I would check to see if you have a decent fireplace company in your area, I have an outfit near me that has been around for years that did a gas fireplace and outdoor BBQ at my last house and they really know their business. They are one of the few companies around that I would recommend to anyone.

I have sold and installed gas inserts and fireplaces for almost 40 years, I would suggest a direct vent insert from a hearth shop near you that can do the service after the sale. That is my .02

 

[Chris616]

Hi Ed - The lowest cost thing that might make a difference is just putting glass doors on the existing fireplace. That will stop most of the large amount of room air that is going up the chimney and being replaced by cold air infiltrating into the house through cracks, etc. That might be happening even when you don't have a fire burning if you're not closing the chimney damper. The downside is that the glass doors will cut down on the radiant heat coming off the fire. We did that for the wood burning fireplace in our current house. In truth we seem to get so little heat from it now that we don't use it much for heat anymore. Instead we use the wood stove in the basement. We don't have gas available here.

In our old house we put glass doors on our wood burning fireplace and I think because it was in a smaller room it still felt like it was throwing out a lot of heat. Bringing the wood in and the ash out always made a mess, though and there was always the "Is it worth the effort?" thinking every time I wanted to put a fire on. We installed a natural gas insert into that fireplace. We thought that it was one of the best renovation projects that we did. No mess, no effort to turn on the fire, it looked very much like a wood fire, with much, much more heat being put into the room. We'd turn it on every evening in the winter while we were in that room. We bought a unit that didn't require AC power to run so that we'd have the unit as heating backup during power outages (and since it was right next to the TV we didn't want to have fan noise). It has a standing pilot that provides the power to the gas valve.

Installing an insert would make a big difference to your situation. Even a unit that gets its combustion air from the room is just going to be pulling a tiny amount of air from the room compared to what is going up the chimney now.

We installed an older version of the unit hyperlinked below. It has been so long ago now that I can't remember the details of why we bought this one, but I would have researched it extensively at the time. I know that Valor has been selling this unit for many years, so would have had the bugs worked out. Our house was similar vintage to yours and we did lots of work to insulate and seal it. It required pulling a stainless steel duct through the existing masonry chimney to prevent the water in the exhaust from condensing in the old chimney and destroying it. It was not direct vented, instead using room air for combustion air.

G3 Gas Insert | Valor Gas Fireplaces

My parents installed two of the newer version of this insert. A useful feature with them is the battery powered remote control with integrated thermostat. My mom can sit on the couch and just let the unit turn itself up and down based on the temperature being sensed by the remote, or she can turn it up/down herself manually using that.

I'm not sure what you mean by this:
"I've done a little looking and believe I would want the kind that exhausts out the chimney rather than directly into the room."
Maybe I'm just not catching your meaning. None of these units are going to exhaust the products of combustion into the room. You must be meaning something else.

Chris

 

[hawkeye08]

Agree, stay away from "ventless", we tried one for a week back when we were putting propane stove in to replace pellet stove. The humidity and smell from the ventless was more than we could handle. Our propane stove (looks like a freestanding wood stove), exhausts out and also pulls fresh air for combustion from outside. It is on thermostat and works well.

 

[Clint S]

We have a direct vent quadrafire that has done wel lm for 15 yrs with only a thermocouple replacement

 

[Rancher Ed]

I would take the time to run power to it and get one that can be run off the thermostat or at least a switch. A lot of the new ones can be controlled with a remote.

You will need to find one that can vent up your existing chimney. A lot are designed for horizontal venting. Typically they are sealed units and need combustion air. Make sure that’s factored into the prep.

Find models you like. All the ones I’ve seen have online installation manuals. Those will provide clearances, maximum chimney length, combustion or make-up air specs etc. That will help narrow down your choices.

I was leaning toward running power, so thanks. And looking at installation manuals online is an excellent idea! I did not know about many being designed for horizontal venting, so I will definitely look at that aspect of it.

 

[Rancher Ed]

I would check to see if you have a decent fireplace company in your area, I have an outfit near me that has been around for years that did a gas fireplace and outdoor BBQ at my last house and they really know their business. They are one of the few companies around that I would recommend to anyone.

I have sold and installed gas inserts and fireplaces for almost 40 years, I would suggest a direct vent insert from a hearth shop near you that can do the service after the sale. That is my .02

I would prefer to install this myself, but I will certainly consider having a local company install it based on what I learn on here and reaching different models.

Jack, thank you for the direct vent insert recommendation. That is exactly the type of information I'm looking for; I can read about the different kinds but that doesn't replace experience.

 

[Rancher Ed]

Hi Ed - The lowest cost thing that might make a difference is just putting glass doors on the existing fireplace. That will stop most of the large amount of room air that is going up the chimney and being replaced by cold air infiltrating into the house through cracks, etc. That might be happening even when you don't have a fire burning if you're not closing the chimney damper. The downside is that the glass doors will cut down on the radiant heat coming off the fire. We did that for the wood burning fireplace in our current house. In truth we seem to get so little heat from it now that we don't use it much for heat anymore. Instead we use the wood stove in the basement. We don't have gas available here.

In our old house we put glass doors on our wood burning fireplace and I think because it was in a smaller room it still felt like it was throwing out a lot of heat. Bringing the wood in and the ash out always made a mess, though and there was always the "Is it worth the effort?" thinking every time I wanted to put a fire on. We installed a natural gas insert into that fireplace. We thought that it was one of the best renovation projects that we did. No mess, no effort to turn on the fire, it looked very much like a wood fire, with much, much more heat being put into the room. We'd turn it on every evening in the winter while we were in that room. We bought a unit that didn't require AC power to run so that we'd have the unit as heating backup during power outages (and since it was right next to the TV we didn't want to have fan noise). It has a standing pilot that provides the power to the gas valve.

Installing an insert would make a big difference to your situation. Even a unit that gets its combustion air from the room is just going to be pulling a tiny amount of air from the room compared to what is going up the chimney now.

We installed an older version of the unit hyperlinked below. It has been so long ago now that I can't remember the details of why we bought this one, but I would have researched it extensively at the time. I know that Valor has been selling this unit for many years, so would have had the bugs worked out. Our house was similar vintage to yours and we did lots of work to insulate and seal it. It required pulling a stainless steel duct through the existing masonry chimney to prevent the water in the exhaust from condensing in the old chimney and destroying it. It was not direct vented, instead using room air for combustion air.

G3 Gas Insert | Valor Gas Fireplaces

My parents installed two of the newer version of this insert. A useful feature with them is the battery powered remote control with integrated thermostat. My mom can sit on the couch and just let the unit turn itself up and down based on the temperature being sensed by the remote, or she can turn it up/down herself manually using that.

I'm not sure what you mean by this:
"I've done a little looking and believe I would want the kind that exhausts out the chimney rather than directly into the room."
Maybe I'm just not catching your meaning. None of these units are going to exhaust the products of combustion into the room. You must be meaning something else.

Chris

Chris,
Thank you for sharing your experience, particularly about the thermostat and remote control. I had to go back and look it up, and "ventless" is the kind that does indeed exhaust the products of combustion into the room. This makes them more efficient as none of the heat goes up the chimney and also lets you mount them on any wall, but for me the benefits are outweighed by the downsides of having the exhaust in the room.

Agree, stay away from "ventless", we tried one for a week back when we were putting propane stove in to replace pellet stove. The humidity and smell from the ventless was more than we could handle. Our propane stove (looks like a freestanding wood stove), exhausts out and also pulls fresh air for combustion from outside. It is on thermostat and works well.

We have a direct vent quadrafire that has done wel lm for 15 yrs with only a thermocouple replacement

Hawkeye and Clint,
Thanks for the experience confirming I do not want a ventless model, and another recommendation for the direct vent.


All,

I will take a look at some of the direct vent models and welcome any more feedback and recommendations. Thanks!