Know Your Gas Logs Before Buying
Nothing is nicer than sitting in front of a warm fireplace in the middle of winter. Homeowners’ fortunate enough to have one should definitely look into gas logs in place of wood if they consistently use their fireplace. Gas is far more efficient and burns much brighter than the flame produced from wood. Plus, there is no clean up and very little maintenance involved in keeping the hearth going all winter long.
The first step in buying gas fueled logs is knowing which kind you want. The two main varieties are vented and vent-free. Vented logs worked similar to traditional wood because they require a chimney or some other source of ventilation in order to release hazardous carbon monoxide emissions produced by their flame. Also similar to wood, an inevitable amount of heat is lost because of the venting. But gas tends to burn twice as hot as wood anyways, so the loss is negligible by comparison.
Vent-free logs don’t lose any heat because they don’t require any ventilation. The downside to this is the amount of carbon monoxide emitted by these types of logs can be dangerous, so it’s important to have detectors in place near the fireplace. Vent-free logs are best suited for standalone units like wood stoves or fireplace inserts because they have no special needs for releasing emissions.
If you do have a masonry hearth, it’s probably best to maximize that resource and go with vented gas logs to get the most out of your fireplace and chimney.
