The main draw of a Ventless Gas Log installation the amount of heat output it is capable of. Ventless Gas Logs are able to operate with the fireplace damper closed. This way the heat circulates into the room rather than up the chimney. This leads to efficient and low-cost heating of your room. In situations of power loss, a Ventless Gas Log set can even be used as a backup heat source. Since burning material of any kind creates a certain amount of carbon monoxide, one may wonder how an unvented log set can safely operate. Unvented Log Sets actually burn so hot that nearly 100% of the fuel is combusted. This decreases the amount of soot and carbon monoxide generated down to a negligible level, allowing Ventless Gas Log sets to operate in a safe manner. Another byproduct of using a Ventless Log Set is a small amount of moisture. In the winter months this moisture can be beneficial in a dry room. If you are also using a humidifier, excess moisture may result in condensation on windows. For an additional safeguard, Ventless Gas Log Sets are always equipped with an Oxygen Depletion Sensor. An ODS measures the amount of available oxygen in the room and will turn off the burner before the oxygen in the room reaches a dangerous level. The method in which this fuel burns can be thought of as similar to how a natural gas range works in your kitchen. The burner on your range is specifically designed to achieve a clean and smokeless flame. The technology available in Ventless Gas Log Sets on the market today works on similar principles. One disadvantage of Ventless Logs are that the flame is generally smaller. A realistic flame is still possible, but it may not be as large as a flame from a Vented set of comparable size.

Ah, yes, the old cellar/foundation vent question..... We go round on this one, regularly, in this household. And there are experts on both (all?) sides. I note you live in Virginia, so your issues are different than mine in northern NY, because we are so much colder in the winter and our summers are different. But, I believe that in the effort to make houses more energy efficient, by modern standards, it can be a mistake to close up the vents if the result is trapping moisture vapor rising up through the soil under the house. However the vapor problem can be ameliorated (and really should be if you close the vents) by other means. In the winter we have to keep our cellar and exposed foundation well insulated or our pipes will freeze, but in the summer I want to get the foundation windows open and cellar door ajar in order to move air through and out using wind and air pressure differentials. This exposes the cold stone walls of the cellar to warm moist air and causes condensation, but eventually it diminishes as the walls warm and dry over the summer. A sealed crawl space or cellar can also have radon issues, if that's a problem in your area. What we did, (FWIW) is cover cellar floor with vapor retardant material; keep everything buttoned up during the winter, but opened up in the summer. Monitor for radon, so far negative. Does that help? If you are having a specific problem or issue other than the dilemma of what the general protocol should be, I could make other suggestions. Oh, one other thing: opening up the crawl space and cellar may let in more mice, but also allows milk and black racer snakes to enter and take care of the problem, at least up here. In your case the reptiles may not be so benign or welcome. (When I lived in VA, some of my neighbors had serious copperhead issues...) Molly~

I would have it inspected for sure, but concrete deteriorates from the heat in fire (turns back to lime and weakens the concrete), plus it has been sitting open with no house on it at least 10 years exposed to the other elements. If the foundation is bare with no deck or steel beams for support the walls very well may be shifting from the frost coming and going and you live in a pretty severe winter area. If it is open snow sitting inside it off and on for 10 years will not do it any good either. Also you do not state how old the house is but the codes very well may have changed meaning the footings may not be to current code. All in all I would think it is a fairly safe bet that it would be useless. I may be wrong but I do not think so

I don't think the first photo looks too bad either, but the planting seems haphazard and leans toward smothering. It's confirmed by the aerial view that shows the depth of the bed. There it looks like the house is smothered up with a green, tumorous mass. Unless plants happen to be planted in the right position, it's seldom the case that they are worth saving. Sometimes smaller plants can be relocated but usually It's much easier to start over with new ones in the right place. I see only a single plant that interests me in that regard. It is the large deciduous shrub between the 2nd and 3rd window from the right corner of the house ... that is, if with different pruning practices it could be made into a larger tree. Since I don't know what it is, I can't know if there's any hope of that. I'm a believer in using plants with buildings as if one is architecturally adding on to the structure, but instead of with lumber, masonry & glass, with plants. It's my preference that the closer to architecture plants come, the more refined and cultured they should be. This is in direct opposition to the currently popular idea that plants are to be arranged in ways that replicate or are inspired by nature. To me, plants are just another building material and in general, I respect how man refines and uses materials. That said, plants themselves are natural objects so they do a nice job of making the transition from architectural to natural. The scheme I use is to coordinate shrubs with windows. In this case, from the perspective of the photo, the house looks a bit smothered with this technique, because there are so many windows. (I should have drawn it with a slightly smaller shrub, but not going back now.) In real life these would not get close to the walking space so would not have the same "pushy" feel to one using the walk. Instead, it would be an apron of low groundcover that guides the walk. Other than that there are small trees flanking the house, perennial masses at the building corners and color at the entrance. There could be an "accent" plant between the two rightmost windows and a taller bed of groundcover surrounding the tree that was made from an existing shrub.