Cost of converting wood burning fireplace to gas?

[Anonymous]

Gas smells all the time, and a properly burning wood fire will not smell or even really smoke. Clean/inspect your chimney, and get a delivery of half a cord of dried firewood. I despise gas fireplaces and never used the one in our old house. We are now looking at one of the more modern wood stove inserts which burn super efficient but are pricey. I love love our fireplace especially on nights like tonight, and I literally couldn’t catch paper on fire on purpose before I learned how to build a good fire. I use little tiny bits of wood, bark, a couple pine needles, to light it up, sitting on top of a few slivers of larger pieces of wood split from the firewood, and a couple pieces of smaller firewood on the bottom, and I’m off to the races. Once it gets hot enough you just keep putting dry wood on top and moving logs around occasionally to keep it going. I occasionally use a piece of fat wood if things aren’t lighting quickly but have dry enough wood that I don’t usually need to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you do that? A wood burning fireplace is magical. I understand you don't like it personally, but most people do - and it would be a good selling point.

Most people have no idea how to build a fire. It’s a pain to source decent firewood and store it, and to lug into the house. You can’t build a wood fire just for a little while. You have to safely dispose of the ashes. It’s messy. And it generally sucks more heat up the chimney than generates it for the home.

Our fireplaces/chimneys were improperly built so that any gusts of wind would send sparks into our house, and living at the foot of a mountain this meant we couldn’t use them very often. So yeah, transitioning to gas has been one of the best improvements we’ve made to our house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gas smells all the time, and a properly burning wood fire will not smell or even really smoke. Clean/inspect your chimney, and get a delivery of half a cord of dried firewood. I despise gas fireplaces and never used the one in our old house. We are now looking at one of the more modern wood stove inserts which burn super efficient but are pricey. I love love our fireplace especially on nights like tonight, and I literally couldn’t catch paper on fire on purpose before I learned how to build a good fire. I use little tiny bits of wood, bark, a couple pine needles, to light it up, sitting on top of a few slivers of larger pieces of wood split from the firewood, and a couple pieces of smaller firewood on the bottom, and I’m off to the races. Once it gets hot enough you just keep putting dry wood on top and moving logs around occasionally to keep it going. I occasionally use a piece of fat wood if things aren’t lighting quickly but have dry enough wood that I don’t usually need to.

I’m glad you enjoy your wood burning fireplace, but it’s irrelevant to the OP’s question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you do that? A wood burning fireplace is magical. I understand you don't like it personally, but most people do - and it would be a good selling point.

Nobody cares about fireplaces, PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you do that? A wood burning fireplace is magical. I understand you don't like it personally, but most people do - and it would be a good selling point.

Not really. We are local custom builders and almost no one wants masonry fireplaces.

[Anonymous]

If only we could switch! DH wants to convert our gas fireplace to wood and I’m not convinced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would you do that? A wood burning fireplace is magical. I understand you don't like it personally, but most people do - and it would be a good selling point.

+1