Fireplace conversion

[churchmouse]

My wife wasn't fond of the idea of burning wood either. Her parents had a gas fireplace growing up and she loved it. Once we had the wood she fell in love with it, MUCH warmer heat and it's really not that much of an inconvenience. We had a wood rack right next to it so she didn't have to go far to get wood.

As a matter of fact, the new place had a gas fireplace in the master bedroom... her response to it? "Get rid of that thing, if we have a fireplace it'll be wood"



To each his own, I think they're still pretty classy...

That's the Kozyheat Z42CD, exact model we had at the old place. It's one of the more affordable options (IIRC $2600 when I bought it in 2010).

Oh yeah that is a very nice unit.
We have a wood burning stand alone in the living room.
My heart is in the open hearth. Nothing beats a good fire place. Until you have to clean it out.....

 

[Notalentbum]

Very nice CountryBoy19!!!

 

[CountryBoy19]

Oh yeah that is a very nice unit.
We have a wood burning stand alone in the living room.
My heart is in the open hearth. Nothing beats a good fire place. Until you have to clean it out.....

Yeah, I can understand that... I will caution the OP, if he is going for the above classic look his options are limited to stone veneer, or major structural changes to get footing/foundation to support the weight of all that stone.

Very nice CountryBoy19!!!

Those aren't mine, ours is a more contemporary look. It's a slate look-a-like tile hearth, sheetrock surround that butts right up to the edge of the fireplace, white "mantle" that consists of a sheet of cabinet grade plywood and crown molding under the edge.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the Z42 is made so it can be connected to ductwork. They sell a kit with little blowers that go in the ducts to blow heat to other rooms, I just connected it to the return air duct of my furnace and put a thermo-disc switch in the fireplace so when the fireplace was hot it tripped the furnace blower on. We heated a 3900 SF house with it. You had to stay on top of it to keep it warm once the temps dropped into the teens, and lower than zero and it couldn't keep up, but that's still pretty impressive.

 

[EvaWilliams]

I think, most of the people are looking for gas fireplaces (Dissecting Modern Fireplace Designs | Walden Homes) when building homes. Even I felt more convenient in using gas fireplace than burning the wood.