Types of Home Fireplaces: Which Is Best for You?

2022 saw around 5 million home sales. With so many new homeowners out there, there will naturally be a surge in home renovations and home improvements.

Of course, the focus of those renovations or home improvements will vary from homeowner to homeowner. Some homeowners will focus on popular options like a new kitchen or renovated bathroom.

Others will focus on building rooms that match their specific lifestyle. For those who appreciate home fireplaces, though, there is another question they must answer. Which type of home fireplace is right for you?

If you’re going to buy a fireplace but don’t know what kind, keep reading for a look at some of the best fireplace options.

Traditional Fireplace

The idea of a traditional fireplace often puts people in mind of wood-burning fireplaces. While many traditional fireplaces are wood-burning, not all wood-burning fireplaces are traditional fireplaces.

Rather than thinking in terms of wood or non-wood burning, it’s often better to think in terms of styles. Traditional fireplaces replicate the look and feel of fireplaces from specific periods of time.

This makes them particularly popular if you plan on renovating an older home with a specific architectural style.

In terms of fuel, many traditional fireplaces do use wood as the primary fuel. With that said, you can get traditional fireplaces that use gas or electricity as the main fuel source.

Many homeowners prefer the gas or electric option as a safety measure.

Gas Fireplaces

Many homeowners prefer gas fireplaces for a couple of reasons. One of the main reasons is that most homes are already set up with natural gas or propane. You eliminate the need to secure a second fuel source for your fireplace.

Another key reason is that you can choose a model that helps you meet your heating needs. If you just want supplemental heating, you can go with a direct vent model. These offer moderate heat efficiency with the beauty of flames in your living room.

If you want a more potent source of heat, you can opt for a ventless gas stove. These stoves offer high-efficiency heating in zones, although they typically cannot provide full-home heating.

You can also find gas stoves that will work with almost any home decorating style.

Wood Burning Fireplaces

For some homeowners, wood-burning fireplaces are the only kind of fireplaces. These fireplaces add a unique element to your home that nothing else can replicate.

While a wood fireplace cannot realistically heat most homes up to an acceptable level, they excel at providing a supplemental heat source.

Beyond that, extreme weather events have made ready access to electricity a more questionable proposition than it was in years past. If the electricity goes out at your home for more than a few hours during winter storms, it can render your primary heat source inoperable. Most modern furnaces rely on electricity to ignite natural gas and distribute heat.

A wood-burning fireplace can offer you a reliable source of heat during an emergency. As an added bonus, this type of stove can even add to your home’s value for the right buyers.

Electric Fireplaces

Not every home has the space for a regular fireplace. Many modern homes even lack a chimney.

While adding a fireplace may sound like a great idea, the expense of adding a chimney to your home can put a damper on anyone’s enthusiasm. That’s to say nothing of the disruption involved with a major renovation in your home.

Electric fireplaces provide you with an alternative to costly renovations and major lifestyle disruptions. Electric fireplaces don’t need a chimney, which makes a fireplace installation much easier.

You get to take a pass on problems like disposing of ashes or getting your chimney cleaned every year. While you don’t get the firm reality of fire in your home, you get the look of fire.

Linear Fireplaces

Linear fireplaces aren’t so much a type of fireplace as a style of fireplace. These fireplaces typically feature rectangular housing. Some common options include:

• Flush-to-wall installation
• Double-sided installation
• Vertical installation

They can operate using gas, electricity, or even wood as a fuel source. While other types of stoves typically operate to create a specific feel in a room, linear fireplaces often function as a statement piece in your home.

In keeping with using your fireplace as a statement piece, these fireplaces are also ideal for custom mantels.

Custom Fireplaces

If off-the-shelf options for a fireplace don’t suit your needs, don’t despair. You can also opt for a custom fireplace instead.

Custom fireplaces can range from fitting into a non-traditional configuration, such as a corner, to a suspended fireplace. In other cases, you may discover that the place you want to put your fireplace can’t accommodate the standard sizes. With a custom fireplace, you can fit a fireplace into most spaces.

You can also consider marrying a specific fuel source with a specific fireplace option. For example, you might want a wood-burning fireplace design that employs gas as the fuel source.

In many ways, the options for a custom fireplace are limited more by imagination than by fuel source or fireplace type.

It is important to remember that custom fireplaces may require extra time to make. Custom fireplaces may also impose extra installation requirements that you won’t see with standard installations.

Picking Between Home Fireplaces

Picking between home fireplaces is often a matter of balancing your wants with practical concerns. While a wood-burning fireplace may sound great, it depends on reliable access to a source of firewood.

On the whole, though, a good fireplace company can help you bridge the divide between your dream fireplace and those practical realities. You can use a specific or easily available fuel source with a traditional fireplace or match an electric fireplace with your existing interior design choices.

Dreifuss Fireplaces offers standard and custom fireplaces in the Philadelphia area. For more information, contact Dreifuss Fireplaces today.