- Nov 27, 2012
- 0
Question:
We built a brand new home and had a gas fireplace with gas logs built in our family room. The fireplace has a chimney. The family room is rather large (18'x18') and also has a cathedral ceiling, two skylights and a large paladium window. Because of the size of the room, we thought the addition of a gas fireplace would be a good choice to help supply the room with additional heat in the winter. Our house is heated with natural gas. When we tried to use our fireplace to obtain the additional heat that we needed, the room actual got colder. It seemed like we were losing all of the existing heat in the room up the chimney. We have tried talking with several retailers of gas fireplaces and no one seems to be able to offer us any advice to help us USE the heat as opposed to LOSING the heat. We would have never chosen the gas fireplace if we knew that we would not be able to use it for heat. Can we do anything to obtain more heat or have some type of converter kit installed to take advantage of the heat? Who can we talk to? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much for your time.
Answer:
First, lets be clear on exactly what you have. My guess, being as you mentioned a chimney, is that you have a wood burning fireplace with regular gas vented logs installed. This is probably burned with the doors open. In this case, these is little or no heat released into the home.
Installing a set of vent-free logs or a full-blown Gas Fireplace Insert into the opening would provide quite a bit of heat into the area.
If, in fact, you do not have a wood burning fireplace..but a vented gas burning one, then you have been saddled with an inefficient model and there may be little you can do. Contact the maker to see if a blower option is available.
We built a brand new home and had a gas fireplace with gas logs built in our family room. The fireplace has a chimney. The family room is rather large (18'x18') and also has a cathedral ceiling, two skylights and a large paladium window. Because of the size of the room, we thought the addition of a gas fireplace would be a good choice to help supply the room with additional heat in the winter. Our house is heated with natural gas. When we tried to use our fireplace to obtain the additional heat that we needed, the room actual got colder. It seemed like we were losing all of the existing heat in the room up the chimney. We have tried talking with several retailers of gas fireplaces and no one seems to be able to offer us any advice to help us USE the heat as opposed to LOSING the heat. We would have never chosen the gas fireplace if we knew that we would not be able to use it for heat. Can we do anything to obtain more heat or have some type of converter kit installed to take advantage of the heat? Who can we talk to? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much for your time.
Answer:
First, lets be clear on exactly what you have. My guess, being as you mentioned a chimney, is that you have a wood burning fireplace with regular gas vented logs installed. This is probably burned with the doors open. In this case, these is little or no heat released into the home.
Installing a set of vent-free logs or a full-blown Gas Fireplace Insert into the opening would provide quite a bit of heat into the area.
If, in fact, you do not have a wood burning fireplace..but a vented gas burning one, then you have been saddled with an inefficient model and there may be little you can do. Contact the maker to see if a blower option is available.
