It used to be that in order to install a fireplace where the builder had not the foresight to put one, you had to move heaven and earth.
Your first step was to utter the most expensive word in remodeling: excavation. To support the weight of a masonry chimney, one must dig below the frost line–42 inches–to create a base sturdy enough to support a chimney that will be about 20 feet high. Legally, chimneys for wood-burning fireplaces must extend to four feet above the roof line or two feet above the peak. Add the interior masonry and carpentry and you’ve got a costly proposition. Figure $10,000.
But no more, thanks principally to the gas fireplace.
True, gas is not wood. The fire does not crackle. It does not have exactly the same late-embers orangey glow or the scent of a wood fire. But if you can restrain your senses, you might be surprised at how close gas comes to duplicating the aesthetics of wood at a lower cost and without the cleanup chores.
“A fireplace is the No. 1 extra in any home because it’s what everyone wants,” says Bill Nolan, senior building and remodeling editor at Better Homes & Gardens magazine.
While statistics vary widely according to region, and even within metropolitain areas, Nolan says fireplaces typically return 90 percent of their remodeling costs or more by adding value to a home “if you don’t get too crazy, like by adding expensive extras such as marble facing. Stay under $5,000 and you should see most of your money back.”
Gas fireplaces are being marketed aggressively because they are in demand, Nolan says. “They’re what’s new and zoomy.”
The entry-level category in gas fireplaces is called “non-vented” because the high-efficiency gas logs need not be vented to the outside of your home. Engineering has improved so greatly in recent years, says W.L. Edfors, vice president and general manager of Alltypes Fireplace & Stove Co. in Oak Park (with satellite locations in Lisle and on the North Side) that several manufacturers now offer an array of gas-burning logs that legally (in most states, including Illinois) may be placed almost anywhere in your home. “They burn at 98 percent efficiency or higher,” Edfors says, “so there are virtually no health-related dangers from exhaust fumes.” They come with emergency shutoff valves designed to work in case of extraordinary circumstances, such as carbon monoxide buildup in an airtight room, he says.
As a further precaution, Edfors says, the non-vented logs are not recommended for households with infants, pregnant women and people with allergies, asthma or other respiratory problems.
The logs themselves do not get extremely hot, so you can install them anywhere you can run a gas line, Edfors says. The next step toward creating the ambience of a fire would be to purchase a fireplace-like masonry box in which to place the logs. The logs start at about $400, Edfors says, and the boxes at about $500. If you need some installation, such as moving a gas line, figure $1,000 to $1,200.
Laura Devlin, manager of Fireplace & Patio Etc., with stores in Willowbrook and Lansing, refuses to carry the non-vented versions. “They are still outlawed in 16 states,” she says, “and we don’t want to have to diagnose our customers to see if they’d be right for the product, so we are taking a wait-and-see approach,” she says.
Devlin steers customers instead to direct-vent gas fireplaces. These units have a metal pipe, similar to a stovepipe, which runs off the fireplace and through a wall. The vent works similar to a clothes dryer.
Some can be installed in existing fireplaces or built into a wall like a conventional fireplace. Models that fit into existing fireplaces are called “fireplace inserts,” and with a little masonry and carpentry, can be made to look as if they were part of the original design, even in an older home. They are popular for their economy and among homeowners who don’t want the preparation and cleanup involved with wood, Devlin says.
“What they want is the remote,” Devlin says. Indeed, the gas valve can be opened with a remote control device just like that which controls a television set, she says. Most units have automatic pilots. Instant fire.
Other models are freestanding, like old-fashioned stoves, Devlin says. A pipe comes directly out the back of the fireplace or off the top and then turns at a right angle and goes out through the wall.
The purpose of the chimney is both to send the exhaust outside and draw fresh air into the chamber from outside. Most models have glass doors in front that do not open.
The fact that the units are sealed enables the flame to burn very hot. Direct-vents work at 70-plus percent efficiency, versus about 25 percent for an open, wood-burning fireplace, she says.
According to the American Gas Association, they operate for about 12 cents an hour. Edfors estimates that wood-burning fireplaces cost 80 cents per hour to operate, assuming a cost of $175 per cord for wood.
A significant amount of carpentry is usually involved in fitting gas fireplaces into a wall, Devlin says. While the project shouldn’t take professional installers more than a day or two, there are often mantels to be cut, drywall to be framed and decorative masonry for the finishing touches.
The living rooms in many older homes are already supplied with gas lines, Edfors says. Before World War II, the pressure in gas lines was low and the houses were sufficiently drafty that there was no danger from gas fires in living rooms. Hence, open and unvented gas fireplaces were common.
After World War II, the pressure in the gas lines was increased and by law, the gas lines were capped. The result is a vast number of Chicago-area homes with decorative but unusable gas fireplaces, he says. Though capped, the gas lines remain ready to be refitted for today’s improved gas fireplaces, and all area fireplace dealers have installed the new models in many such homes, Edfors and Devlin agree.
In these cases, figure on paying $1,200 and up for the equipment and about $1,500 for the carpentry and masonry. When there is no gas line in the living room, installers look to basement lines or kitchen lines, or sometimes tap right off the gas meter on the outside of the house, Devlin says. In basements, you can tap off the furnace or the hot water heater, she says.
A third style of fireplace, “fully vented,” is capable of burning wood, or encasing gas-burning artificial logs. These fireplaces are open in the front like traditional fireplaces, and have stovepipe chimneys vented outside, Devlin says. More air feeding the fire from the front creates the largest and most wood-like flame of all the gas-log models. The gas jets can be used to start real logs when you operate it as a traditional fireplace.
“About 80 percent of the fully vented models we sell are for gas use,” she says. “Of the clients who start out burning wood, nearly all ask us to make sure their units are fitted for gas capability, and my estimate is that most switch to gas after about a year,” she says.
“We live in an urban area where wood is expensive because it has to be trucked in,” Devlin says. “And most of our customers are from families where both parents work. They don’t have a lot of time to maintain a traditional fireplace.”
But for those who insist on having a wood-burning fireplace, Roger Zeman, manager of Comfort Corner, in Riverside, says the job can often be done using a prefabricated fireplace and a metal chimney for as little as $4,000. “As long as you’re not building a brick chimney,” he says, “you can usually get away for less than half that $10,000 figure.”
Most suburbs have an ordinance that requires the metal chimney to be covered with a material to make it look like a masonry chimney, “but that’s not a major obstacle,” Zeman says. He covers the chimneys with 1/2-inch brick facing or uses a metal material painted to look like brick.
The interior portion of the job is not much more involved than it would be for installing a top-end, vented, gas-burning fireplace, he says.
Besides being concerned with keeping the wood fire in the fireplace and off the living room rug, wood burners must be aware of creosote buildup in the chimney, the experts say. If you use your wood-burning fireplace daily, you might need to have the chimney swept a couple times each season.
“Whether you go with gas or wood, you can count on getting your money back,” says Joan Kelly, an agent with Baird & Warner in Oak Park.
“I find buyers in their 20s want the romance of wood. By the time they are trading up to second and third homes, they’re in their mid-30s with kids and they’re looking for convenience,” she says.
Still, a wood-burning fireplace is no drawback, she says. “Most of the upscale homes I sell, ($250,000 and up) are older homes with original fireplaces. Some have been converted to gas, but not all that many yet,” she says.
“Especially in rooms that are not used that much,” says Nolan of Better Homes & Gardens, “such as a master suite or a formal living room, whenever a fireplace is added these days, it’s probably gas.”
The thing to know, Kelly says, is that “some people want a finished basement. Some people want a deck. But everyone wants a fireplace.”
In any case, the warmth a hearth brings to your home is more than just the kind that thaws your feet after a battle with the snow shovel. And with new fireplace alternatives, hopefully it will do so at a price that won’t burn.
