We moved into a total electric home a couple years ago, and our only source of heat is a heat pump. We have a typical Georgia fireplace with a framed chimney and a metal flue. I have a mental block about using these types of fireplaces because I built them out of masonry for 30 years, and frankly, I do not like the concept. We would like to use the fireplace for gas logs as an additional source of heat. Do they provide much heat, are vented or vent free better for heat? Do any of you folks have experiences with them?

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Recycled Bricklayer

I use my gas fireplace regularly for heat.

It does a good job heating the room it’s in but I doubt it’s very efficient.

I suspect a good deal of heat escapes out the vent to the outside. In that sense, it’s similar to a traditional wood fireplace.

Lots of different units available,some decorative,some designed to heat

We have a vented ( out the side wall) gas fireplace in our basement gameroom. It's a "unit" designed and installed as a gas FP closed glass front......... has a blower unit to transfer heat to the room......................

Room is kept at about 60..... the fireplace with blower will quickly bring it to the mid -70s when the boys want to hangout.

Only issue is it doesn't have a thermostat ..... so the boys often leave it on in which case we get heat coming up the basement stairs.

We built in 84. We have a 42 inch fireplace insert with separate duct work from the heat pump. After I got tired of twisting my back out of whack with wood and having to load it up in colder weather we bit the bullet and installed gas logs. Well that was a waste of money. They worked but higher energy cost. We ended up buying an unvented heater and blocked the fireplace and a larger propane tank and problem solved. I pay in advance when propane is cheaper $1.80 per gallon and about 300 gallons gets us through the winter. We heat 1800 square feet with a three burner but have never had to use the third burner. Gas and electricity combined is $1000 for three months to be cozy all winter at 75 degrees. The grid in the heat pump is a backup system. You can rent a 350 gallon propane for $75 per year. The coldest it gets here is about 15 and not that often. The dogs say in the attached 650 square foot garage at 50 degrees.

We have a vented gas log fireplace with a blower on our main floor, It's okay...I guess. I mean it'll warm the room up and take the chill off but it's certainly not designed to heat the whole house like a wood stove. While they do kick out some heat, I think they are more for ambiance than anything else. Like RPG said, it does a good job of warming the room that it's in.

We have a wood stove in the basement that does a heckuva job of warming things up. I just wish it was on the main floor instead of the gas log.

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Pack light and cinch tight.

We have a ventless propane fireplace in our living room.


Keeps the living room toasty warm without having to heat the whole house.

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Keep on Chooglin'

Does it have a blower?

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Recycled Bricklayer

What kind of fireplace do you have now? Does it burn wood, or is it a direct vent, enclosed with a pane of glass gas log unit? Many of the direct vents will accept a blower unit that considerably increases the heat you get from them. The ones we currently use radiate some heat through that pane of glass, but I hear adding the blower to them is the way to go if you want to get some real heat out of them.

Wood burning. Previous owner has a gas line from a 100# propane tank plumbed to the fireplace.

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Recycled Bricklayer

Me too, added the sliding glass doors the second year thinking they might radiate the heat some more. Not noticably.

We just replaced an unvented gas fireplace. We hated the smell and it was always hard to light.

Replaced it with a direct vent setup from fireplace xtrordinair. This is one of the glass fronted units. It has a blower / thermostat / remote.

I'm very pleased so far, but it wasn't cheap.

Gas Fireplaces | Gas Fireplace Inserts | Fireplace Xtrordinair | Seattle, WA

If you have a regular masonry fireplace and want to burn gas logs it won't save much money on utilities because hot air rises and most of the heat goes up the flue. Also if you live in a windy area the wind blowing across the chimney will suck conditioned air out of the house so you REALLY want to close the damper when the fireplace isn't on.

This past summer I had my 30+ year old LP furnace and AC unit replaced with what they call a hybrid heat pump. When the outside temp gets below 40 it uses an LP gas furnace. I really like my wood burning heater but I've gotten to old and my back is to bad to cut and haul firewood. This is the first winter in probably 40 years that I have not burned wood but the heater is there as a backup if we should lose power.

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Old Age Ain't For Sissies

Ours doesn't but a kit was available.

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Keep on Chooglin'

Most gas log retrofits to a fireplace are listed by code as an illuminating appliance not a heating one. They are there to look pretty not to heat. A damper must be permanently wires open so it sucks room heat out whether on or off. If you want heat anything else is cheaper to run, if you want looks go for it.

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Front sight and squeeze

We have a gas fireplace. On New Years Day, our furnace stopped working. It was -6 with windchill. We kept the fireplace on from 8pm-11pm. The house didn't drop below 50 at night. For about a week were were without a furnace. The fireplace kept things just fine.

We recently sold our home and moved to a retirement community, but we did have a fireplace in the home we sold. It had two fireplaces...one in the family room, which was a wood burning fireplace with a gas fire starter, and the other was a gas log only fireplace in the formal living room. We had had wood burning fireplaces in former homes we'd owned, and where we lived it didn't often get cold enough to really mess with a fire, so I talked my wife into getting a very nice set of gas logs...thinking it would be more convenient and largely decorative.

The family room was pretty big, about 30 x 30 (it was a large home, 4000 sq ft) and the gas logs were pretty but didn't warm the room. I could turn them up as high as they would go, but unless you were right up next to the fireplace, you really didn't feel much warmth. In the 14 years we lived in that home, we only had a couple of really cold winters, so it wasn't too bad, but when it was really cold I sure wished we'd had a good old wood fire.

I did like the convenience, not having to clean out ashes, bring in wood, etc, but if you plan on using the fireplace for heat and not decoration, I'd strongly recommend wood burning.

We used to have one of these in the fireplace in the master bedroom when living in the Mid West. The fireplace could burn wood but we didn't want the smoke or soot in that room. It was nice and would quickly warm up the room on cold nights before retiring.
Jim

My last house that I built had a dedicated gas log fire place with folding glass doors that was in the upstairs 700 sf family room. In the cool spring time we would leave the glass doors shut and enjoy the fire and get a little heat from it. On really cold winter days we would open the doors and the heat would really come out and warm the room up fast and then we would turn down the fire a little bit because it would get too hot. It was pretty energy efficient because it was vented with a small 3-4" flue for gas fumes to go out the roof, but a wood burning fireplace will have a very large flu to let the smoke out (and the heat).

I’m no expert but that never has stopped me before. My MIL had a gas log insert put into her masonry fireplace. I think the installer put it too far back in the firebox. I think most of the heat is going up the chimney. To me it seems to throw little heat into the room. BTW it has no blower.

Our flue has had some problems and we had it repaired. I just wasn't comfortable burning wood, so we installed a set of vented logs. It'll warm the room, but it's not efficient. We enjoy the pretty and convenience.

..heat goes up the chimney, or vent but some escapes into the room and if you get the fireplace and the logs hot enough it radiates heat into the room.

I wish I had gas logs. We have a fireplace we've only used a few times. I think having a good quality set makes a difference and it would be a great source of heat in an emergency. And they are a lot cleaner and don't smoke up the neighborhood.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"