Neither. A wood burning stove with a see thru door is the best option. It can provide real heat and a fire view. A fireplace will suck more air out of the room that it can heat.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1461783}}

There are several factors to consider as Dh and I did when we built our house. Even if you are in the city do you have access to wood for your fireplace? Or maybe this will just be an occasional use and then I guess it doesn't matter. If you want your fireplace to produce some heat creek side is right, a wood stove would be the best. We chose a wood stove because we are in the country and get some pretty cold winters plus we have lots of trees for our wood supply. I think if I were in the city I would have a gas fireplace only because the wood type would not be as suitable, for me that is.
Good Luck!

I am going with a Pacific Energy wood stove, and will not pay a dime to heat my house. But, I have all of the free firewood I want. I am also a little deaf so my wifes complaints about the mess are tolerable. I live in Lake Tahoe and its snowy and gets cold. It is so nice to be able to crank up the heat for free. But do not underestimate the mess and work. Its only free after the wood is finally split and stacked.

I like the idea of a wood stove except perhaps the extra sf required for it and maybe the danger to my toddler grandchild touching it. Fireplaces get a bad rap, and probably in most cases are earned. My experience is different. When the temps stay below 50 for an extended time I turn OFF the furnace and stoke the fireplace with beautiful see thru doors. Key to this is I'm only heating 1300 sf downstairs and it's an open floor plan design. Only the furthest rooms get a little chilly. My wood comes from the property so I heat the area virtually cost free. There's alot of talk about all the house heat that goes up the flue, but if I'm able to heat 1300 sf the FP must be a net contributor of heat, not the reverse. Someone please explain where I'm wrong.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1406707}}

Maybe this is a better pic....

[IMG]http://i45.tinypic.com/2cfs8jc.jpg[/IMG]

srercrcr - I agree that a house gets warm when you have a fire so I never understood that part of the argument. I think it is fair to say that you lose so much heat the rest of the time that you are not likely to have a net heat gain.

I think I remember doing some calcs and coming up with an astonishing number. That 7% of X was just to make up for fireplace losses. Now I don't know if that X was total household energy use or just heating use but either way a staggering number.

I have heated with wood using a wood stove and a wood stove insert. I have also attempted to heat using a zero clearance fireplace with an air circulation feature like a Heatilator brand.

There is no comparison. The wood stove and stove inserts are positively miserly in comparison to the open fireplace, which consumes an amazing amount of wood.

You can heat with a fireplace, but at huge cost. It takes an enormous amount of wood to sustain useful output, and most importantly, it only heats the room it is in. The rest of the house slowly gets colder, as its air is drawn toward the fire. The fireplace does not put out enough heat to counter the loss of heated air, due to is inherent inefficiency.

I've linked the excellent woodheat.org below.

Here is a link that might be useful: All You Want To Know About Wood Heat And More

We chose a wood burning model, and yes, the ducting was a pain, but we'd have had to use a non-venting gas model otherwise, and I don't trust the non-venting.

We're not trying to heat our house, just have some ambience on really cold nights. We have an outside air induction kit, but didn' opt for the glass doors. Those can limit the indoor air use of the fire.

We still stubbed out a gas pipe in case someone wants gas logs.

Preferences and practicality are clearly local and specific. New wood-burning fireplaces are rare in homes here. Gas fireplaces rule.

But in cottage country I'd go for wood every time. The only problem with the not particularly efficient cast iron box at my cottage was that it quickly raised the inside temp to 90Ë+F. --even when it was sub-zero outside. For the half dozen years I owned the property, I didn't even get through the leftover split wood from the previous owner. There were two other cottages there ,too, that I never even used, both with wood stoves only.

We currently burn wood as our primary source with a furnace back up that rarely comes on throughout the winter. It's only use is if I dont get up in the early a.m to stove up the woodburner. Our woodstove is a sealed unit with a catalyst that burns hot and efficiently, but you still need to get up a couple times in the night/early a.m hours to feed it. On our build, we have a zero clearance gas that will be the primary until we take on a planned addition that will house a wood burner and will once again be the primary. Plenty of wood on our property as well as being relativley inexpensive when bought from local suppliers, so it's a no brainer. Some areas out here are banning wood burning and in areas allowed, you still are required to have a backup heating source.

We have a vented gas fireplace. I have asthma and anything wood burning (fireplace, stove) makes me ill (when the smoke from the Canadian wildfires made its way to Maine a few weeks ago I was miserable for 3 days). I prefer the look of a wood fireplace, but it's not workable for us.

Even with a sealed door woodstove, you're going to get smoke in the room when you open the door to re-load. You have to go slow in opening with most stoves I know of, but even at that, you will get some smoke in the house. You also want to keep the flues and ember screens clean. I brush them every two weeks or so which might sound overkill, but the unit burns more efficiently and is peace of mind safety wise. Packing in the logs and we cut, split, and stack our wood which is a workout. I enjoy it but am not getting any younger. Another factor to consider is for us, an occasional high winds from the east seem to effect not only the burning, but in rare times, blowing smoke back into the house through the upper vent/flue connect. Very cost effective with wood, but a lot of effort involved!

Many of the issues discussed here are design and personal preference issues rather than reasons to use or not use a particular wood burning device.

For instance, wood burning fireplaces give off a great deal of radiant heat especially if they are tall and shallow. To reduce loss of conditioned air from the house they can have outside make-up air ducted to the firebox and an operable cap at the top of the chimney to avoid heat loss when the fireplace is not in use.

Decide what you like or need and then design it well. Assume it will cost twice what you thought it should cost.

Heating a house or even a room or two with a wood stove is romantic but I'm not going to cut and store that much wood (been there done that, don't live in the woods anymore, don't own an axe or a chainsaw by choice) so I prefer a wood burning fireplace. When I light a fire I want to really see it, then let it go out, close the flue and forget it. And in between the occasions I want to see a fire (in the few coldest months) the fireplace is not in the way and it looks really good unlike most wood stoves which take up a lot of space and often look a lot like something out of a Mad Max movie or designed by a Goth asylum escapee (what happened to the good stove makers?).

Many of my clients prefer gas fireplaces and some of them look surprisingly good if installed with some good detailing instead of the way they are shown in the cheezy brochures.

Like any other design element decide what you'll really use and how often you'll use it and then design to accommodate it.

Happen to think of our vermont castings as quite awesome lookin' thanks! Matter of opinion but inefficient open fireplaces do have their place in cosmetic world, especially some of the awesome stone work ones built by hand in the past. Cool lookin' but lousy heating source.

If the OP is actually from Paramus, NJ, then my guess is her fireplace will mainly be for aesthetics.

Since the fireplace in our great room is only for entertaining, etc. we are doing wood. We don't want to just look at flames, we want the crackle and hiss and full sensory experience.

Jo Ann

A real wood fireplace would have been my choice, but family allergies made gas the only choice for us. I have been pleasantly surprised with it. It has a great real look. We use it more than we would use a real fire because it can be turned on or off with a light switch; even if we just have half an hour between after school and evening meetings we can enjoy a fire without fear of leaving it unattended. It really is cleaner, in the lack of debris in the house, smell, and soot and smoke. It does put out a good amount of heat--during a winter power outage we were able to stay comfortably in our house for a week without electricity despite freezing weather. We even warmed a bucket of water set beside the fire for bathing. Our one regret with it is that the furnace thermostat should not have been placed in the great room with the fireplace...bedrooms get cool when the fire is on. Most people assume it is real when they see it.

We made the mistake of having a gas fireplace in the last house we built 12 years ago. Hated the thing. We rarely used it. I think the only time we turned it on was Christmas Eve. Even then it ignited on its own one night and caught the stockings on fire. Never again. We now are in a rental house with a real wood burning fireplace and love it. No, we don't try to heat the house with it. Like Jo Ann said, it is purely entertainment. Kinda like a TV is. You don't really need a TV, but they sure can provide some enjoyable entertainment. We do like the fact that our wood burning fireplace has a glass door on it that can be closed up when the fire's "almost out" and we can go to bed.

Grew up with a real wood burning fireplace with the glass doors and a heat pump. Put out ridiculous heat, too much in fact. And I saw how much trouble my father had to go through everytime for a fire...haul out the ash...bring in newspaper, clean windows, haul in logs, build a fire...enjoy for a few hours, and do it again the next night. So you have the ash, the bark all over the floor, not to mention cutting wood or buying it.

So, I vowed never to have a real wood burning fireplace. Our first house we bought as a married couple had a gas fireplace, and we absolutely loved it. We used it all the time as our primary heating source. Since we live in TX, our winters aren't too bad. So we were able to turn off our furnace and just use the gas fireplace. Saved a lot of money.

So, in our new build we're going with a gas fireplace. The convenience is just too much to ignore.

We have a fireplace with wood stove insert. Love it. It heats the house better than the heater. The mess doesn't really bother me. I actually sort of enjoy cleaning the stove. Then again I've been through three major ice storms where the area was without heat and power for several days at a time. The wood stove adds to my security and comfort level.

Have you looked at this one? I used to have one in our last house, still going strong after 25+ years. Loaded it up with wood when going to bed, turned it down and topped it up in the morning. The fire burned 24/7 throughout winter, with only the occasional clear out of ash. If you only burn dry wood, as in not green, you shouldn't have to clean it out very often at all.
http://www.jotul.com/en-us/wwwjotulus/

Sorry, didn't add link properly...:(

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood Burning Stove

Choosing to use a wood burning stove is usually a matter of life style and location. The OP appears to have already made the decision to have a fireplace and only asked whether it should be gas or or wood burning. That decision generally depends on how intimate you wish to be with the wood and the fire since the other energy and air quality issues can be dealt with to a reasonable extent with modern zero clearance units.

We compromised and used Isokern for our big fireplace in the greatroom and also on our outdoor porch fireplace. The Isokern is able to use gas or wood and we have gas lines to both. Inside we will use gas and outside wood. I prefer a real fireplace but don't want to deal with ashes, smoke, and wood inside the house. I wanted a real fireplace inside even with gas logs, but as always, cost was an issue.

We are doing the same as ramor and will use either Isokern or Fire Rock (similar products) depending on price. Both are excellent according to our architect. We too will run gas lines to both with wood (with a gas starter) outside and gas logs inside.

These products are higher efficiency than a traditional masonry fireplace, look exactly like masonry, and cost significantly less.

The easy answer is to run a gas line to the fireplace which will give you the flexibility to do both. Of course this won't work if you are planning on doing a fireplace insert :).

You will be OK with either one if resale is important.
If you decide to go with a gas burning fireplace, the main thing is to get one with realistic logs and also the flame should be yellowish. Most cheap gas fireplaces have partially blue flames.
I'd select the one with the lowest carbon monoxide emissions.
Personally, I do not like "stoves".

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1461784}}

Vented gas fireplaces have a more yellow flame and produce more carbon monoxide but it goes up the vent. Ventless gas fireplaces have a more blue flame and produce less carbon monoxide but it is released into the room.

Wow, thanks for all the responses and comments. I have been reading your forum for some time and really value your opinions. As Drjoann very accurately noticed we are indeed from Paramus, NJ and the fireplace is not going to be used to heat the house, although, we had no power for almost a week this winter and people with wood burning fireplaces really benefited from theirs. A fire place is a must in a new house in Paramus, but a gas one has always looked fake to me. I have done research on them for my old house and there were more expansive ones that looked real but there was still no smell of burning wood and no crackle. So, for this house I would have preferred wood if it were my forever house, but as it isn't, I have to consider resale and relative cost of installation. Is it much more trouble and money to install the real thing vs gas? Since the opinions on this board split as to personal preferences, I guess I have to look at the cost of installation. Oh, well...

As long as you have a gas line into the house, it won't be that expensive. The ducting for a gas insert is relatively simple. A wood burner, especially units rated as heaters, can be more expensive to install depending on the ducting and venting requirements.

If all you want is the occasional fire, I would go with the gas unit. Much easier to operate and to keep clean. I have one with a hand held remote that has a tstat in it. I can put the remote anywhere in the room and the fireplace will adjust automatically to keep the room at the set temp. I love that feature.

I have a wood burner too which we use to heat the house when we loose power. It is a chore to cut and split wood and to clean the fireplace, but I enjoy it.

Both of our units are from Fireplace Xtrodinare - fine boxes. The gas insert install was simple. The wood burner was much more challenging.

The wood burner unit and fires look the best and throws off the most heat, but is far more work to operate and control output temperture. Gas is great - push on or off and your done. The box looks great but the fires look OK (not as good as wood) , but keeping the room at a set temp is all done automatcially.

Good luck with the build

Both!

We did a 42" FMI Georgian (see link, below) which is woodburning. It has pretty close to a masonry look. It is "gas ready" & we put a drop, nearby, in case we get tired of messing with the wood. The non-combustible portion of the surround is going to be honed silver slate.

It was installed on the last day of our visit, so we were lucky enough to get a picture:

We also have a small, direct vent gas in the master bedroom.

Jo Ann

P.S. I grew up in Elizabeth & before I moved to TX had a 1920's Dutch Colonial Revival in East Hill, Englewood. (Need to add the "East Hill" to Englewood for another Bergenite. LOL!)

Here is a link that might be useful: FMI Georgian

Pardon my indulgence, I'm still trying to post my pic.....