Direct Vent Gas Fireplace
"Fireplace envy" might be a way of describing a feeling you get when you enjoy an evening at a friend's house and that friend had a warm and enjoyable fire blazing in their fireplace. When you get home and realize that you did not buy a home with a fireplace in it, it is easy to wish you had one too. It is a natural envy to get because fireplaces make a great contribution to any home that has one.
For one thing, a home with a fireplace has an alternate source of heat. In the wintertime, burning a fire can fill the house with warmth which can reduce the demand on your heater. While the wood you use to burn in a fireplace sometimes costs money, you can often harvest some yourself and the investment is well worth it for the other values starting a fire in your fireplace gives to the family.
In addition to heat, a fireplace creates a feeling of community and closeness for those who are gathered. It is almost impossible to think of a great holiday scene or movie that a fireplace was not part of. In fact, fireplaces are so central to Christmas that one of our cherished traditions is to hang stockings on the mantel of the fireplace for Santa to fill with treats for the children.
If you don't have a fireplace in your home, it won't take long to realize that having one installed is a big undertaking. A typical fireplace fills a wall of your living room, involves a lot of brick and concrete work and also calls for the installation of a chimney that juts out of the top of the house. This is a big change to the layout of the house and an expensive alteration as well.
A great alternative to having a traditional fireplace installed is to look into a new technology called direct vent. The great thing about this approach to getting a fireplace is you can install it with much less expense and fuss but in many ways it looks like a fireplace and gives you the heat and the atmosphere of any traditional fireplace. There is a very smart technology that went into this design called "zero clearance technology". In a nutshell, a direct vent approach to building a fireplace uses a metal housing where the firebox is but it is built into a wood enclosure, which has the personality you want from a fireplace.
The great thing about fireplaces using direct vent is they work off of gas so you don't have the fuss and the expense of keeping wood around and trying to keep wood fires going. And the venting of the fumes from the fireplace goes out a port in the wall that is put in for this purpose. No chimney and because it burns gas, no burning embers or pieces of paper flying out of the fire to cause problems elsewhere.
Direct vent is a great alternative to a traditional fireplace. It is less expensive to purchase, install and operate but you get all of the benefits you love when you visit friends and enjoy their fireplaces. So it is a great way to cure that case of "fireplace envy" that may have been plaguing you lately.