There is nothing like a real wood burning fireplace.
However, it is only in the recent past that wood fireplaces have become an efficient source of heat for your home. A traditional masonry fireplace, while wonderfully warm to sit beside, is actually a net heat loss on your home, drawing in warm air for combustion before sending it up the flue. Burning unchecked as it does, an open fireplace also consumes extreme quantities of wood and emits unacceptable levels of particulate matter into the atmosphere.
Today’s zero clearance wood fireplaces come in a heavily insulated shell and are specially designed to minimize particulate emissions and wood utilization while maintaining the cheery ambience and wonderful heat of a traditional wood fireplace. Also, unlike an open masonry fireplace, zero clearance fireplaces take their combustion air from outside the house.
As the name suggests, a zero clearance fireplace can be installed practically anywhere you like in your home and is framed in using combustible materials. In choosing the best location, you will need to consider the positioning of the chimney (a stainless steel pipe packed with insulation and ranging in diameter from 8” to as much as 12” or more, depending on the requirements of the fireplace). The chimney can run straight up off the fireplace through the roof, or, if the fireplace is on an outside wall, it can go out and then up. Either way the chimney needs to extend two feet higher than the point on the chimney which is horizontally ten feet from the roof (our estimator will perform this calculation).
Visit the Comox Fireplace & Patio showroom today to chat with an experienced staff member about the best wood fireplace for your Vancouver Island home.