Indoor Fireplaces

If you do not have the luxury of having a fireplace in your home right now, but you love the look and feel of one, you still have a chance to make your decorating dreams come true. The great thing about most indoor fireplaces is that you will not have to throw down any walls, you will not have to spend thousands of dollars on a contractor or builder, and you can do it all on your own if you want to.

These fireplaces come in two main packaging. You can either buy them already built with the actual fireplace “pit” and the mantle. Or you can build them on your own with the supplies they gave you – both ways are about the same level of difficulty, which is not much at all. The one aspect you need to look at when buying a fireplace for inside your home, is to start looking at what type of fireplace you want because there are a few options you have.

One of the more popular options is the indoor gas fireplace. These do give off a good bit of heat, they are pretty darn energy efficient, you still get the roaring flames which can give a room a lot of ambiance, but there is slim to no maintenance. The only thing you have to do is take the glass frame off of it once or twice a year to clean the glass and around the inside of the “pit”. The pit does not come in contact with your space, but there still has to be a flue of some kind, so anything coming down that flue will get inside the pit. Mostly dust, some bugs. Nothing horrible that you cannot deal with!

The second option people go with is what some people refer to as the fake option. These are the pits and the mantel frames, but the flames are nothing more than light play or candles. You can also purchase an indoor electric fireplace. The flexibility is great because you can place them anywhere. For example, if you had a two story home a real fireplace with chimney would be very difficult from a construction standpoint. These are really nice for climatic areas that are hot. Why would you need a roaring fire when you live in a place that is 80 degrees all year?!? You would not! So, these are really for just decorative purposes and that is about it. They are really safe as well, unlike the gas one where if someone touches that glass – they will get burnt.

And obviously the last option is a real fireplace. These are not built in to your walls, but you can use real wood, you do have to clean up real ash, and you can feel a lot of warmth coming from these.  Do your homework as construction cost and installation time can be different on each. The choice is really up to you and what matters more to you – look or feel!