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Changing a wood burner to a gas furnace questions

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Deal Addict
Jan 11, 2007
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Changing a wood burner to a gas furnace questions

So I paid a chimney company $100 to tell me the house I bought has a chimney that is against code. (the exit on roof not above roof level) so they said get someone in to estimate your options.

SO wife gets another person to show up and for $130 they tell me your 27 year old chimney is a bad wood burner and can leak acid. Guy seemed knowledgeable but is effectively trying to sell me a gas fireplace and I am paying him for his sales pitch (Or so it seems) He advised that he could run vents upstairs for gas fireplace to help heat the upstairs and that gas furnace is more practical.

So my quote before any aesthetics just to do the work is 7600/taxes. This seems like an enormous sum of money could I not just take the chimney out and cover this section and pay less to "start fresh" on all wall in my house I choose?

Thoughts from folks that have done this already?
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Feb 8, 2014
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Get more quotes, nuke the fireplace entirely or consider electric fireplaces (i am not personally a fan but many people like them)
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
Deal Addict
Jun 6, 2015
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Why electric, Quentin? Because it's cheaper? Why don't you like fireplaces :)
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Carebra wrote: Why electric, Quentin? Because it's cheaper? Why don't you like fireplaces :)
no vent needed, and its cheaper, and it plugs an opening that allows heat loss (air tightness increases energy efficiency of a house).

I do like fireplaces, but they are often very expensive in energy, cost and effort.

Done properly they are very nice, but that is very costly, which is an issue to the OP.
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Aug 30, 2011
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Electric is cheaper to buy and install, but the cost to run is at least 4x the cost to run a gas fireplace. I'd go with a gas one. (Although I'm not clear on whether the quote was for a furnace or gas fireplace)
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Jun 6, 2015
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Yes that is very expensive I would have thought that electric would be cheaper upfront but expensive to run - thks Q
Deal Addict
Jan 11, 2007
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It's for gas fireplace change.add mantle and stone etc on top
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Dec 5, 2009
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I don't think the chimney needs to be higher than the roof peak but it defiantly needs to be higher than the heated area of the house.

If there have been no issues in 27 years I'd question it.

Another option, is to just seal the flue and not use the fireplace. I.e. Decoration only.
Deal Fanatic
Dec 19, 2009
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Wood chimneys have termination requirements in building codes just like any other fuel type chimneys.
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OttawaGardener wrote: Electric is cheaper to buy and install, but the cost to run is at least 4x the cost to run a gas fireplace. I'd go with a gas one. (Although I'm not clear on whether the quote was for a furnace or gas fireplace)
I agree electricity costs far more then gas, but wood is not cheap, plus if the fireplace is fed internal air your also losing heat up the chimney, so i would want to see some numbers
I have heard from many people that fireplaces warm the room they are in but cool the rest of the house (because makeup air has to come from outside but the heat getting to the room is radiated which explains why they heat the room they are in).
fdl wrote: If there have been no issues in 27 years I'd question it.
very true
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Aug 30, 2011
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You're right Quentin5, I wouldn't go with wood. I meant comparing a gas fireplace to an electric fireplace. Wood is messy and inefficient as an open fireplace.
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People don't heat their houses with open fireplaces ... sheeeesh.
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If the chimney is not to code, the cheapest solution is to stop using the chimney and code violation disappears. As far as converting to gas, that is a whole different matter. I don't think that height of chimney above roof level applies for gas fireplaces. Some of the modern units discharge through an opening in the back wall. Anyway, the quote for installing a gas insert seems rather high. I had a gas insert installed in my wood burning fireplace 4 years ago. My cost was slightly less than half of the quote.
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will888 wrote: Some of the modern units discharge through an opening in the back wall.
I had a feeling i had seen one of these somewhere but did not want to post wrong information in case i had it mixed up with high efficiency furnaces/water tanks.
In fact in Rand McNally they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people
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Dec 19, 2009
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will888 wrote: If the chimney is not to code, the cheapest solution is to stop using the chimney and code violation disappears. As far as converting to gas, that is a whole different matter. I don't think that height of chimney above roof level applies for gas fireplaces. Some of the modern units discharge through an opening in the back wall. Anyway, the quote for installing a gas insert seems rather high. I had a gas insert installed in my wood burning fireplace 4 years ago. My cost was slightly less than half of the quote.
Of course the height above a roof applies to gas fireplaces ... as does gas furnaces as does gas water heaters as does oil furnaces as does oil water heaters as does propane fireplaces as does propane water heaters as does wood stoves as does wood furnaces.
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I think my wife just got ignorant customer'd really. I just don't get it, I paid like $130 for them to come try to sell me a gas fireplace lol. We never used the wood burner and was considering options of fixing this "code" thing" the first guy from the company said but now based on the advice of the 2nd guy got a quote for the gas fireplace. Big job vs no job, vs little job, which is the guy with the pen behind his ear and labour dollars in his mind going to recommend 99.9% of the time.

So confused!
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pootza wrote: Of course the height above a roof applies to gas fireplaces ... as does gas furnaces as does gas water heaters as does oil furnaces as does oil water heaters as does propane fireplaces as does propane water heaters as does wood stoves as does wood furnaces.
um the chimney isn't how the gas fireplace ventilates im paying a lot of labor dollars to "close up and seal" the old fireplace properly.
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Dec 5, 2009
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dreaderus wrote: I think my wife just got ignorant customer'd really. I just don't get it, I paid like $130 for them to come try to sell me a gas fireplace lol. We never used the wood burner and was considering options of fixing this "code" thing" the first guy from the company said but now based on the advice of the 2nd guy got a quote for the gas fireplace. Big job vs no job, vs little job, which is the guy with the pen behind his ear and labour dollars in his mind going to recommend 99.9% of the time.

So confused!
If you never use the wood burner just seal up the flue and your done.
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so an update I am getting charged probably 2-3-4k just to "remove" the odd wood burning stuff properly. do I have to do this? why not just wall it up lol or put a gas thing on the front of it all? I am not looking for "let your house burn down comments" more so just asking the question as this type of stuff if your not careful you can really be taken for a ride.
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Dec 5, 2009
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You said you don't really want a gas insert. And you don't use the wood burner. So Just seal the flue with rigid foam and caulking. Done. If you are not using it why are you spending thousands to fix it.

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