north central Iowa, Hampton | We put one in an unused fireplace last year. Yes, pricy--it does look a lot like a real fire, though.
My goal was to have some sort of heat source if the power was out for a while--maybe not to keep the whole house warm, but to at least keep us above freezing. I thought about putting a wood-burning insert in, which would be a lot more efficient than the 50 year old fireplace. Then I thought--
-it's a pretty short hearth, am I going to burn the rug?
-where exactly am I going to store the amount of wood I might want to keep going for a day or two?
-ashes
-if I'm really depending on this for heat, that means getting up to tend the fire every couple hours
-sure a fire is nice, but it takes time to lay, get the heat right...
If only (I thought) there would be some way to create heat in the fireplace without all that extra effort....
AHA, I've got an LP tank in the back yard--Gas logs!!
The set we bought has electronic ignition and a fan. It can run safely with no fan (power outage) and can use a 9V battery to power the ignition circuit. I think the brand is Mendota.
We used it quite a bit last year--it would be possible to run the logs and turn the furnace fan to "run"--sometimes we remember, often we don't and the rest of the house gets a little cool, which is ok.
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Gas Logs in fireplace
