We had woodburning fireplaces in our first two homes. When we built this home 11 years ago, we went with gas (propane, not natural). We do not have an odor. We have real flames. We have the warmth and it can be used when the power is off (although you can't turn the blower/fan on then, but we don't use it much anyway). Our house is very energy efficient and unless the power is out (which is rare), we do not need a fire for heat. I, too, like the firelogs. They are cleaner than wood. Easy to start also. With a wood burning fireplace, it will sometimes bother those with allergies so if that's a problem for you, take it into consideration. You can get odor and they are more messy with the ashes, etc. I think sometimes the odor is moreso from not cleaning the ashes out soon after a fire. We have an outdoor woodburning firebox, which we enjoy, so I really feel like we get the best of both. We are almost always able to cut our own wood, I'm not sure what it costs in our area. I hate to say it, but we have not used our fireplace yet this winter. That will probably change this coming weekend! tina

We have an inside fireplace and an outside fireplace that are back to back (NOT see through.) They share the same external brick chimney, but each has their own flue, firebox, etc. Both were built to be wood burning, but have gas starters (which is such an easy way to build a wood fire!) We converted the inside fireplace to just gas by installing gas logs, but kept the outside FP wood burning with the gas starter. Dh loves building fires on the porch, and I love not having messy ashes anywhere near my marble hearth inside. Win-win! Oh, and both put out plenty of heat!

tigerdunes thanks, I really do like the idea of having the variable speed and 2 stage heat of the Trane 15 Seer packaged unit at a price marginally higher than the 14 Seer 1 stage units. I looked up the XL824 Trane thermostat and the reviews were not so good compared to others like the Honeywell 9000 (TH9320WF5003) or the ecobee 3 - it seems Nexia also requires a monthly $10 fee to use. Are there other thermostats that would allow for a dehumidication feature by sensing humidity and telling the ac to run at a very low speed without causing significatly lower temperatures than we want? We do travel a good amount particularly during the warmer months and it would be great to be able to control the system remotely (get the ac cooling before we arrive etc.). We also just got an Amazon echo and might want to use Alexa to control the temperature via voice commands. We have been using disposable pleated filters at the 2 air return registers. I asked about a media filter (we have an Aprilaire in the attic for the upstairs unit) but they did not recommend it because we would have to go into the crawl space to change the filters (ceilings are too low and i'm claustrophobic). Company A quoted putting a media filter in crawl space for $225, Company B quoted an air purification system for $800 for both Trane and Carrier options- maybe they are referring to Trane clean effects not sure - i didn't investigate further due to the high cost. Austin Air: it seems packaged units or gaspacks as they call them around here are the norm in homes is NC for the lower level floors as our crawl spaces have such low ceilings. Company A showed me the rust/hole in the heat exchanger and the heater had already stopped working so I think they were telling the truth about it needing to be replaced. We weren't the ones to put in the system in 2005 - i was told the American Standard heat exchanger only had a 10 yr warramty (XE not stainless). All 4 of the companies i talked to said 12-13 years is a normal life expectancy around here due to the unit being outside in the elements and not having a stainless XE. The new units with stainless XE have 10 yrs on parts and 20 yrs/lifetime on XE - of course labor to replace is a factor that's why i was pricing the 10 yr labor warranties -but good point on reading the fine print. Any thoughts on things that would increase the life of the gaspack being that it will be located outside other than the stainless XE i.e. Carrier Armor coat coil tin plating vs. aluminum Spine Fin coils? Thanks again!

I am with you....in our first house we had a wood burning stove very much like the one in your picture. It heated our whole house. We had access to free firewood so we had free heat all winter long. Was also very nice when we were without electric from a winter storm. I also cooked on it some. Now we have a gas fireplace in this house and it is nice, I guess. We do miss the wood stove but not the dirt :)