Benefits of Adding a Gas Fireplace Insert

While a wood-burning fireplace can be a great addition to any home, many homeowners find them difficult to maintain and impractical. But rather than letting it sit unused year after year, why not consider adding a gas fireplace insert? Your existing wood-burning fireplace can be retrofitted with a gas fireplace insert to heat your home more efficiently and conveniently.

Read on as we explain what a fireplace insert is and share the many benefits of adding one to your home.

What Is a Gas Fireplace Insert?

A gas fireplace insert is a contained metal box that is installed into an existing fireplace. It sits inside a metal box surrounded by a larger metal box. Heat is generated in between the two boxes and emitted from the firebox. Since a gas insert produces steady, radiant heat, it is a great way to heat a home.

Benefits of Adding a Gas Insert to Your Wood Fireplace

With a gas fireplace insert, you can enjoy both ambience and efficient heating with the touch of a button. Here are just some of the benefits you’ll realize:

• Efficiency. A gas fireplace provides immediate warmth and maintains a consistent, comfortable temperature more efficiently than a traditional wood-burning fireplace. What’s more, you can get 75 to 99 percent of the fuel’s energy back as additional heat.
• Low Maintenance. Enjoy long-lasting warmth with the push of a button. No need to chop or purchase wood, store it, build a fire, and stoke it. Once you’re done with the fire, simply turn it off instead of having to clean out ash, soot, wood chips, and so on.
• Versatile Design. Gas fireplace inserts come in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles to suit your home’s décor. Choose from traditional “logs”, sleek ceramic coal, and even ceramic stones.
• Clean Burning. While nothing beats the look, feel and smell of a wood-burning fireplace, wood smoke contains a surprisingly large amount of particulate, such as benzene, formaldehyde, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). On the other hand, a gas fireplace burns more cleanly with almost no particulate to worry about. Gas fireplaces also put out far less carbon monoxide and help prevent destructive logging and forestry practices.
• Safety. Gas fireplaces are much safer than their wood-burning counterparts. For example, a wood fireplace needs regular cleaning and maintenance to prevent the buildup of soot, ash and creosote, which significantly increases your risk of a house fire. In comparison, a gas fireplace is almost maintenance-free.  Although you should have your gas fireplace professionally serviced a couple of times a year, it requires nearly no per-use maintenance like a wood-burning fireplace does.

If you have an unused wood-burning fireplace and a gas line on your street, then all you need now is the right team of professionals to install a new gas connection for your fireplace insert. Well, here we are…Norhio Plumbing. Experienced gas fitters with a long history of successful and safe installations. Contact us today for more information or to schedule an appointment.