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The different types of fireplaces

Adding a fireplace to your home can be a lovely idea and a great way to keep warm throughout the winter months. Most homeowners don’t know where to start when going to buy a fireplace though. There are many different types of fireplaces to choose from and many different models to help make your home more beautiful. In this guide, we are going to go over all the different types of fireplaces that you can put in your home and what it would take to run them. Please be sure to thoroughly read each description so you know just what you’re getting into before you buy it!

The 411 On Fireplaces

Fireplaces have long been a staple of attractive looking homes around the world. Many nice homes will include a fireplace in their living room for families to enjoy. A lot of movies that depict Christmas time also showed families gathered around a warm fireplace in a clean and attractive looking living room. There are even decoration tips online for how to decorate the space above your fireplace to make it look more attractive. They’ve even gotten so popular that people have made YouTube channels of distribution in fireplaces to try to give the same ambiances having a real one.

Generally, though, a fireplace can only realistically heat one room and won’t do you any good unless you’re in it. Fireplaces do put off a pretty fair amount of heat but the heat will not travel or last to get to the next room over. Even in small confined spaces, you won’t find that your fireplace gives off much heat once you exit the door. If you’re looking for something to keep your whole house warm then a fireplace may not be for you. If you spend a lot of time in one room then installing a fireplace may be perfect for you. You also should generally know that a fireplace isn’t something that you can just install on your own.

Fireplaces are going to need to be installed by professionals, especially if it means you’re going to have to cut into the wall of your house to properly install it. On top of that, most fireplaces are going to need vents to be run through your home depending on what type of fireplace you decided to purchase and what fuels it. You also need to have some type of an outlet for the smoke to go through, which means it will be installed on the top of your house to properly filter out the heat and smoke made by burning.

Types of Fireplaces

There are three main types of fireplaces that you’re going to need to know about in order to pick which is probably best for you. These three different types of fireplaces will use different types of fuel and some may take a bit more work than others and some will just make your energy bill go up even more than normal. It’s up to you to decide which will be best suited for your home and which one you want to put up with the maintenance of.

Wood

If you want to keep things truly traditional, then the wood fireplaces for you. Wood fireplaces have long been the staple a family homes since fireplaces were first invented. The only downside is you’re going to be putting in more work to carry wood and keep your fireplace fueled. While the price of wood isn’t extremely high, you can find many people just trying to sell it for cheap. The work it requires to get the wood and bring it to your fireplace as well as the clean up from the mess that the burning wood can leave can be quite stressful for a home. Still, it does give you that classic feeling that classic smell of an old-timey fireplace you could not replicate with any of the other models.

Electric

The electric fireplace runs off of exactly what it sounds like it does. These models use electricity to heat the room and give you the ambiance of a natural wood fireplace. They’re generally safer than any other model and some of them can even be controlled through easy digital touch settings nowadays. The only downside is it will make your electricity bill skyrocket if you plan to use it a lot throughout the winter. Still, the electric part of it allows the engineers to be a little bit more creative with the design of the fireplace and the placing as well.

Gas

Believe it or not, this is actually the most popular form of fireplace you can buy today. The gas fireplace uses a tank outside your home and is filled with a fuel truck service every time you run out. You can even schedule regular fillings to keep your family up to date. While the fillings can be expensive when you first get them, the fuel lasts so long that you generally would end up saving more than you do with an older style fireplace. Inside the fireplace, you will have fake logs and a vent that pushes out flames to give you the same ambiance you have with a wood fireplace without all the mess.

Choosing your fireplace

When choosing your fireplace, remember that this is going to be a fixture permanently in your home. That means that once you make the choice, it is going to be a little bit more difficult to switch you over to another means of fuel. Be sure to pick a fireplace that can be attractive even if you decide to repaint or remodel your room later on. If you’re not seeing a model that you like, check special orders or online catalogs to see if you can get something more appropriate for your home. You should be prepared to spend quite a bit of money when shopping around for a fireplace so don’t be surprised if you have a price well over $1,000 at the end of your process. Also, remember you are going to have to pay for the fuel over time so be sure to budget that in your family’s financial plan.

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