When tired of cutting wood

We have a propane furnace and a nicely installed Big Jack wood furnace at our present house. In a our area of southern Tennessee we have mild winters but when it gets very cold we fire up the wood furnace and love the wood heat and our land has a lifetime supply of free wood. We are building another smaller house and the plan was to install a heat pump plus a propane fireplace which I have already framed out. Wood is certainly better but as everyone knows a lot of work. As I was comtemplating installing a direct vent propane fireplace I saw a electric fireplace and did some research on the subject. With our southern location, desire for less work it looked like just what we needed to fill the space and to allow for a nice mantel /fireplace look. I just bought a 37 inch wide Dimplex which has the major market share. I just got it temporarily wired today and the fake flame looks great fire and can be run without using the 220 volt heaters and also air filter on the built in fan. It only puts out 2700 watts and is not a major heat source but fits our needs perfectly. I was wondering if anyone on the forum has any experience with these units? The house I am building is small 1200 sq foot and super insulated that even its modest output will be nice for those days when just a little heat is needed. The house is reinforced concrete block, ten foot ceilings and polyiso insulation with walls R35 and ceiling R55 to 60.

Thanks
JM

That was a concern of mine also. A few years ago we had a major power outage for nearly a week but since haven't really had any other than a hour or two due to a car wreck or maintenance. A generator is a good idea. I got the electric fireplace temp wired yesterday to check and the flames and log set look very real. Dimplex is probably the best looking of the fake fireplaces. I will install it in the same way as this gas unit would have been with granite and stained wood mantel which I had already bought to use with this empire gas unit.

Thanks
JM

begreen said:

Instead of a gasoline generator consider a propane powered one, especially if you have a large tank. Or consider a vented propane space heater or fireplace for in the house.

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Be green
At the new house we won't have Propane at all. That was one of the advantages for having the electric fireplace. I am hoping power outages are so rare they won't be much of a problem. The new house is in Moore county which is only 15 miles from our present house and uses the same power company. I am going to hook up our water so it will be easy to turnoff and drain the pipes. If we ever face a major several day power outage I will consider it a good excuse to go to Florida for a few days. I will probably invest in a cheap generator also and for cooking we can use our propane grill if we decide to tuff it out.

Thanks
Jim