What Type Of Fireplace is Right for Your Home?

Electric fireplaces and gel fireplaces are ventless, smokeless, and fireless fireplaces. Early models from the 70s and 80s featured tacky, plastic, and obviously fake fire scenes. With modern innovation, however, electric fireplace heaters often display fairly realistic fire scenes that don’t appear false until viewed up close. While these alternative heat sources may not have quite the same beautiful aesthetic as a genuine and conventional fireplace, they are far more portable and energy efficient. On average, they generate enough warmth to sufficiently heat up a 400 square foot room. Electric fireplaces also offer hundreds of unique styles, with plenty of distinctive fireboxes and fireplace mantels, so your portable electric fireplace can really enhance and improve your home’s appearance.

Fireplaces are wonderful additions to any home. There are many different kinds of fireplaces out there, each with their own strengths and weaknesses; you can surely find the perfect one for your home, and enjoy the warmth and comfort it brings for many years to come.

The value of a beautiful fireplace cannot be overstated. These common home features provide warmth and comfort during the cold seasons, and they often facilitate camaraderie, sociality, and family togetherness. Nothing quite beats gathering around a roaring fire with your loved ones on a cold winter’s night. When most people think of fireplaces, they conjure up images of traditional wood fireplaces, the immovable types that are built directly into a wall under a chimney. But there are actually a number of distinct kinds of fireplaces, including gas fireplaces, gel fireplaces, wood burning fireplaces, and electric fireplaces.

The conventional fireplace is composed of several parts: the foundation, the hearth or mantel, the firebox, the smoke chamber, the flue, screen, doors, and the chimney chase. Each of these parts may have a unique design. The majority of fireplaces are gas or wood burning models, though some use alternative energy sources, like electricity. The fireplace mantel may be a highly stylized, ornate addition to your living room, or it may be a subtle and useful surround for your firebox. Fireplace mantels and surrounds, and they are fairly easy to install and interchange and can improve your home decor. With the right mantel, your fireplace can be a gorgeous facet of your home’s design. These conventional fireplaces, however, are not very energy efficient. And if not used properly, the smoke from wood-burning models may actually pose health hazards.

These flaws in traditional fireplaces have prompted the development of alternative “fireplaces” and heat sources, including free standing electric fireplaces and gel-based fireboxes.

Gel Fireplaces are different from electric fireplaces in that they actually start a real fire.  But instead of burning wood, these fireplaces burn an odorless, non-toxic, completely eco-friendly jelled alcohol compound.  All gel fireplaces conform to EPA standards of cleanliness .  Each canister of “gel” usually contains enough fuel to burn for 3 solid hours at approximately 3,000 BTUs, so while these fireplaces are not quite so efficient as electric fireplaces, they are still effective at heating a localized area.  Many gel fireplace owners simply burn two canisters at once, increasing the BTU emission and therefore promoting even more warmth over a larger area.  They may be less cost-effective than electric fireplaces, but gel fireplaces have that romantic quality to them that only a real fire can bring, without any of the problems associated with wood smoke.

One of today’s top alternative fuels is propane, a highly refined substance that is a byproduct of processing crude oil and natural gas.  Propane fireplaces burn hotter and a little more efficiently than other fireplace types, and they emit far less pollutants and particulate matter than wood-burning fireplaces.  Propane fireplaces generally use a less expensive fuel than electric or gel-powered units as well, though they do tend to emit more pollutants (including carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide) than the other alternative fireplaces.  If you want the most “traditional” genuine-flame fireplace, while still doing your part to help preserve the environment and your health, look no further than propane fireplaces.