Natural Gas/Propane Inserts for Existing Fireplace

[Kingsqueak]

Running power for a fan is annoying but it makes all the difference. I run a wood insert and when that fan kicks on is when it will easily heat the whole place.

Open fireplace and gas logs, you are correct, will pull the heat out of your house and they burn a crazy amount of gas. Very expensive.

A direct vent with a heat circulating fan would be a great balance. I had a ventless in my last house and the air quality issue was bad, hated it.

 

[Rancher Ed]

A year later and I am looking at this again. I took some good measurements and created a sketch of the opening which I have attached. To summarize, I have an existing open natural gas burning fireplace and am looking at options for installing a direct vent insert with a fan.

I visited one local company that has a showroom and installs all different kinds of inserts. They did not offer/carry anything small enough to fit in my opening and were not interested in helping me find one.

Some online research leads me to believe that the following should fit:

• Kingsman IDV33
• Superior DRI3030TEN
• Regency E33, HRI3E, and LRI3E

I am sure there are many others as these were just the first ones I found.

Does anyone have any feedback about the three brands listed above? Experience with those specific models would be even better. I am also open to other brands or models if they will fit in my opening which is apparently smaller than normal?

 

[Ken45101]

In 1999 we built a new home with two gas fire places. One was vented, one was unvented.

The vented gas fire place gave off very little heat.

In 2001-2, we heated the entire house with the unvented gas fireplace. It cut our heating bill 80% from the previous year.

YMMV

Ken

A year later and I am looking at this again. I took some good measurements and created a sketch of the opening which I have attached (.pdf file). To summarize, I have an existing open natural gas burning fireplace and am looking at options for installing a direct vent insert with a fan.

I visited one local company that has a showroom and installs all different kinds of inserts. They did not offer/carry anything small enough to fit in my opening and were not interested in helping me find one.

Some online research leads me to believe that the following should fit:

• Kingsman IDV33
• Superior DRI3030TEN
• Regency E33, HRI3E, and LRI3E

I am sure there are many others as these were just the first ones I found.

Does anyone have any feedback about the three brands listed above? Experience with those specific models would be even better. I am also open to other brands or models if they will fit in my opening which is apparently smaller than normal?