As winter descends on Southern Maryland, we’re at home and looking for ways to relax.
There isn’t much that’s more relaxing than stretching out in front of a warm, cozy fire in the fireplace. What isn’t relaxing is the work that has to be done before and after: bringing in firewood, building and lighting the fire, waiting for it to start, and then cleaning up the dirty mess of ashes when you’re done.
But when you have a propane fireplace, you skip all that and go straight to the relaxing. Just push the button to start the fire and, when you’re done, push the button to turn it off.
Not only do you get the warm glow and cozy comfort, you get more heat than you do with a wood fire, where most of the heat is lost up the chimney.
There are two ways you can have a propane fireplace in your home. One way is a freestanding propane fireplace or stove. The other is installing a propane fireplace insert into your existing masonry fireplace. Taylor can help you with both.
Whichever you choose, you need gas logs. Here are three things you need to consider as you make your choice with us.
Before you choose your gas logs, you need to know whether you want vented or vent-free logs. And to make that choice, you need to think about efficiency, where your fireplace is, local building codes, and aesthetics.
Vented logs offer a large, realistic-looking flame that that most closely simulates a wood fire. However, those looks mean less efficiency: vented logs require an open chimney flue or damper, and much of their generated heat escapes through those.
But vent-free logs operate with the chimney flue closed. You’ll get outstanding efficiency. But the flame isn’t as realistic or as high as you’ll find with vented logs. Most vent-free log sets are controlled by a thermostat to help maintain a consistent room temperature. Vent-free heaters also add moisture to the air, so proper ventilation is needed to avoid mold and mildew problems.
Because vent-free heaters emit a small amount of exhaust into your indoor space, they aren’t permitted in bedrooms or compact, closed spaces like bathrooms or RVs. Also, local building codes may prohibit installing vent-free space heaters at all. Check with your municipality before making this choice.
Heating power is measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs for short). There are a lot of things that dictate in the end how much heating power you’ll need to warm your space, such as the size of the room, type and amount of insulation you have, how tall your ceilings are, how many windows are in the space, and whether the room has carpeting or hard-surface flooring like wood or tile. Our equipment experts will help you with this so your gas logs can give off the right amount of heating power.
You may be thinking, “A log is a log, right?” Nope! You have a wide variety of looks to choose from with your gas log set. Our gas logs are beautifully crafted to look exactly like real wood. You can go classic with oak, country with pine or birch, or coastal with driftwood.
Contact us to find out more about our selection of gas logs!
Written By: on December 21, 2020