Today, a fireplace is a cosmetic counterpoint to those more rustic days when fireplaces were requisite fare for survival. But like any addition to a home, purchasing and installing one demands careful consideration.
Lansing Meyer, general manager and president of Hearth and Home in Calgary, stresses considering the type of decor in your home before deciding on the type of fireplace you want. If consumers make a wise choice and if installed properly, a fireplace can not only heighten your surroundings and add value to your home.

“The first thing is to decide if you like a more contemporary or traditional fireplace, then decide if it’s going to be built-in or free-standing,” he says. “You also have to decide if it’s going to be a wood-burning, natural gas or pellet model.”

Most modern new homes boast installations that fit right into a room where the only giveaway is a glass panel with a fire burning behind it. Those with more character-oriented architecture are opting for masonry-style fireplaces, complete with brick or stone to accent a traditional look, a preference of most interior designers.

When it comes to source-driven fireplaces, natural gas is still the most popular. “I would say close to 90 per cent of what we sell in fireplaces is natural gas,” says Kent Greves of Diamond Fireplace & Stone in Calgary, adding the retailer also deals in different types of wood-burning fireplaces and wood stoves.

Wood-burning installations have the upper hand during periods when gas prices surge upward, according to Lorne Komarnisky, owner of Fireplace Stove World in Calgary. And unlike the old days, when folks would throw a log on the fire and hope the temperature rises to a comfy level without overheating their homes, Komarisky says the technology to control the level of heat, length of burn and the amount of wood used is now available.

“What’s becoming hot right now are environmental thermostatically controlled wood-burning fireplaces, where they don’t waste the wood,” he says. “Now a fireplace can be controlled so you can get a long burn to the point where it can last up to 40 hours on one load of wood, heating up a home as big as 2,500 square-feet.”

For the most part, gas units are initially more expensive than their wood counterparts, but fuel costs play a huge factor in realizing your return on such an investment. In the case of wood burners, it helps to have a healthy supply of logs and kindling at your disposal to keep those energy expenses down. Urban dwellers, though, may have to bite the bullet.

“You can save money with a good wood-burning fireplace, but you have to be prepared to source your wood yourself,” says Meyer. “With wood, like any other commodity, it’s subject to supply and demand. In winter months, the wood gets pretty expensive and you won’t save a lot of money buying your wood. If you were to get a forestry permit for a few bucks and cut your own, then you can save a considerable amount of money.”

Greves notes, while people sometimes balk at investing in natural gas units when prices for the fuel are high, when natural gas fees rise, so, too, does the price of wood. He adds that wood-burning units are more popular with people who have access to wood at a relatively inexpensive price, and the space to store it. “We sell more wood-burning, to be honest, to people in rural areas and on acreages. There’s also more work involved with a wood-burning fireplace.”

Gas-burning fireplaces earn the biggest thumbs-up for convenience, especially for households with busy lifestyles. Thermostat consoles make it easy for users to manipulate the temperature and activation times.
Experts say environmentally-conscious consumers won’t find much difference in the effluence produced by wood or gas units. Wood-burning fireplaces use a recyclable source and contribute fewer greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, although Meyer says the improved efficiency of natural gas-burning units has made the difference in pollutant levels rather minimal.
“The only problem with wood is that it doesn’t take very many parts per billion to catch the scent of it burning,” adds Komarisky. “With natural gas, it’s a fossil fuel and is not as recyclable. The offset is that people don’t smell it, they tend to think gas is much cleaner.”

One hot trend is a movement toward a more modern profile or “clean face” to a fireplace façade. “What’s becoming really popular is contemporary design and sleeker fireplaces, not just the traditional firebox,” says Greves. Some manufacturers are producing models that mirror the shape of a big-screen TV (up to 54 inches across, by roughly a foot-and-a-half high), such as Town and Country’s WS 54 “Wide Screen.”
Some have also removed the log from the equation entirely, such as a new product Greves says is “very Zen” with a flame sprouting out of a bed of white sand.

Also heating up the market is a warmer simply called “The Torch” by Napoleon Fireplaces—standing two feet tall and about a foot wide, the cosy accent would work well in a home with contemporary architecture, says Greves. “I could see it installed on either side of a big-screen TV or behind a bar, or even in a niche.”

Whichever style or fuel-source fireplace you select, be prepared to spend a lot of time in front of it to ward off the chilling effects of Old Man Winter.

“Where you really get your value is in the quality of life,” says Meyer. “You get a very warm room to lie around in and a house at a comfortable temperature.” NL