Fireplace Q

[KidViciou$]

my pops wants to turn our regular fireplace into a vented gas fireplace with a remote. do you lose a lot of heat with a standard gas fireplace with the fluke or whatever its called open an inch? i thought it was called a damper, but anyways, the peeps at BGE, the local energy company told my dad that that type is just for show, you dont get any heat and he should spend 4500 on a gas fireplace with heaters and blowers.

a builder that is friends with the family was telling me he has a non vented gas fireplace, and although there is a FAINT smell of gas, it heats up the whole house. i want a non vented for my basement, but my dad is scared of getting ANY non vented.

if you have any experience with vented or non vented, please let me know.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Gas fireplaces are just for show and don't put out alot of heat, I'd recommend either leaving it as is and using wood or getting a gas furnace. A non-vented fireplace will quickly use up the air in the room and could easily cause problems.

 

[KidViciou$]

problem with wood is a LOT of the heat escapes the damper.

thanks, any others?

 

[KidViciou$]

^^^

 

[Sluggo]

Non vented fireplaces are great, they are like 99.4% efficient at burning the gas. There are widely varying qualities of gas FP units, some will put out heat like a blast furnace, some will do almost nothing. A standard wood-burning FP is horribly inefficient, for the most part all it does is heat a small area around it, while sucking all the warm air from the rest of the house, for its own voracious oxygen appetite. They are also pretty hard on the environment.

Your dad needs to check into "gas inserts" for his woodburning unit. They are basically a self contained units that slip into your current opening, work great. They come in vented and non-vented models, depending on what kind of money you wanna spend.

 

[KidViciou$]

yea, we know about gas inserts, but my dad wants to have the gas line leading to our house connected to the FP to give us an endless supply without refills.

for non vented though, how bad is hte smell? how rare are carbonmonoxide accidents with them?

 

[Ornery]

If unvented gas appliances are allowed in your state BUY IT! If you're worried about the carbon monoxide, get a good Carbon Monoxide Detector for about $40.00.

We've got an unvented heater in the rear of the house and unvented fireplace logs in the front. If you can get one with a thermostat, do it. I wish ours had one, but ya can't expect much for only $175.00. They also have a "low oxygen" sensor that turns it off if needed, so there isn't much to worry about. The oder it has is completely unnoticable while you're in the house. If you come from the outside in, you'll smell something that reminds me of... HEAT. I don't know what else to describe it as. You'll not smell anything 15 seconds after entering the room.

The natural bi-product of burned natural gas is H2O. You won't even need to run a humidifier! I set my heaters just high enough to allow the furnace to run a few cycles per day. Otherwise, we get too much condensation on the windows. You don't have to worry about people leaving the doors hanging open either. It's actually a good idea to get the fresh air in there. It's recommended not to use these things as your primary heat source because they do burn oxygen up. My house isn't too tight, so I think our setup is just right. We stay toasty warm all winter. Like about 74 degrees and the bills are lower than anybody I know.

Uh, did I mention to BUY THE DANG THING?

 

[KidViciou$]

i will bring your experience up to m dads attention, thanks ornery

btw, heard any other rap songs you like?

 

[Ornery]

Oh man, tell him the basement would be perfect for it. You'll not only have a warm basement, but the heat gets used a second time upstairs! Do buy the detector for peace of mind. We've got two. The good one is by Nighthawk.

I'll tell you one thing about rap that I like lately. Since it's so cold, the ignorant, inconsiderate, annoying turds around here have to keep their damn car windows closed. So I don't have to hear their friggen, bumpin' BS :| They never play anything as decent as the 2pac tunes you posted, just noise!

Gettin' me a new Home Theater setup for Christmas, so maybe I can blow them off the road when they go by, with some SLADE!

 

[KidViciou$]

there are a LOT of artists who are just as good as tupac, if not better.

ill tell you what you might like, i got to get some songs without cusses for you