Heat your home more efficiently with a fireplace insert
Would you like to reduce your heating bills, improve your home’s indoor air quality, and reduce your environmental impact? A fireplace insert can do all three, along with improving the look and ambiance of your home.
A wood-burning, pellet, or gas insert for your fireplace can cut your home heating bills by as much as 40 percent, depending on what type of insert you choose, your home’s layout, and your region’s climate. Inserts also eliminate the fine particles that make their way into your home while an open-hearth fire is burning and greatly reduce the air pollution created by your fireplace.
If getting rid of your open-hearth fireplace is right for you, there are many home-heating options.
Wood-burning inserts maintain the traditional feel of a wood fire
If you enjoy the sights and sounds of wooden logs burning in a fireplace, a wood-burning insert might be right for you. You burn wood as you would in a traditional fireplace, but the inserts radiate heat from their glass doors and employ blowers to return heat from the fire to your home, rather than letting it escape up the chimney as it would with an open-hearth fireplace.
Most inserts are now EPA certified, and burn with 60 to 80 percent efficiency.
Pellet stoves decrease your environmental impact
Pellet stoves seem to the favorite type of home heating appliance among those looking to lessen their home’s environmental impact, and an insert can turn your existing fireplace into a pellet stove.
As the name suggest, pellet stoves burn tiny pellets made from compressed, dehydrated wood byproducts, such as shavings and sawdust. Some stoves burn biofuels, such as corn, cherry pits, or wheat hulls. Because the fuel for the stoves contains little moisture, the smoke contains fewer particles, and the fires burn hotter.
Pellet stoves still provide the smell of burning wood, and the ambient glow of a traditional wood-burning fireplace, but without the logs. They are also lower maintenance than a wood-burning fireplace, as the pellets can be purchased in 40 pound bags, and once the stove’s pellet tray is loaded, the fire can burn for more than 16 hours without needing to be reloaded.
Gas stoves provide convenience
If you enjoy the glow and warmth of a fireplace, but too often your hearth remains empty because you don’t want to deal with the hassle of building and maintaining a fire, and constantly cleaning ashes out of your fireplace, a gas insert could be the heating appliance you’re looking for.
With a gas fireplace insert, you can enjoy a roaring fire at the push of a button or the flip of a switch. Many gas fires mimic the look of wood-burning fireplaces very convincingly, and you don’t have to clean the ash box when you’re done enjoying your fire.
Natural gas or propane also are extremely efficient and provide little air pollution when burned in an efficient fireplace insert.
Upgrade now to save this winter
If you’re interested in using your open-hearth fireplace to lower your heating bills, the experts at Clean Sweeps and Air Ducts of Michigan can help you select your fireplace insert today. Call 734-668-4780 to schedule an appointment!
