While a wood-burning fireplace has its undeniable charm, the quality quickly fades when you have to clean up ash or soot, or contact a chimney sweep to clean the chimney. Fortunately, there are cleaner-burning heat options in the form of fireplace inserts gas installations.
A Preferred Way to Keep Warm
Fireplace inserts gas installations are designed to transform a drafty old fireplace into a beautiful and inviting hearth. You don’t have to go out and chop logs or deal with the ashes and soot that form when you are using a fireplace that burns wood.
An Ideal Alternative to Burning Wood
With just a flick of a switch, your fireplace inserts gas hearth is creating the same kind of glow as wood. However, it is not manufacturing the same by-products, such as ash, carbon monoxide and moisture. The heat is a clean heat and the flame is a clean flame. Therefore, the only thing that is generated is convective and radiant warmth.
AFUE Endorsed
When choosing a fireplace insert, you will want to make sure that it is AFUE endorse. AFUE, which is an acronym that stands for “Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency,” is used as a gauge of heating efficiency. The heat that is actually delivered to a living space is compared with the amount of fuel that is supplied to the fireplace inserts gas unit. Therefore, an insert that has an 80% AFUE converts 80% of natural gas into heat.
The AFUE for a heating unit, such as a fireplace inserts gas product, only references the unit’s natural gas efficiency, not the electric consumption or usage. The U.S. Department of Energy sets certain requirements for manufacturers of furnaces and fireplaces to follow with respect to AFUE ratings.
Some of the Amenities
Besides being AFUE rated, fireplace inserts should also come with a lifetime warranty on the glass that is used. A glass pressure relief system, co-linear air duct, easy-to-install vent connection and engineer-designed burner system, are some of the featured amenities for today’s inserts. Fan kits with variable speed control as well as an electric ignition make today’s fireplace inserts both energy-compliant and safe.
A Vented Gas Fireplace Heater
Typically, inserts can be categorized as vented gas fireplace heaters as they are not vented through the chimney but through a pipe that runs out through a wall or the roof to the outside of the house.
Therefore, when you buy a fireplace insert, you are buying a heater that replicates the look of a wood-burning hearth. The only difference is that you don’t have to worry about the ashes or the by-products that are produced when wood is burned instead of natural gas.
