Electric insert vs gas insert — which is better for an existing fireplace?
In Hendersonville, gas is the better fit for most — the quiet, low-maintenance sealed gas insert this retirement town favors gives you 70-percent-plus efficiency and hands-off warmth with no wood to haul. Electric makes sense for a Laurel Park spare room, or for anyone who wants flame without a fuel line or a bigger project.
Built for a hands-off household
This is a retirement-heavy town, and quiet, low-maintenance warmth is exactly what most buyers here are after — both options chase it differently. A gas insert lights at a switch or remote, runs off the natural-gas mains under Main Street and the Spartanburg Highway subdivisions, and needs only one tune-up a year. An electric insert — the Dimplex IgniteXL we carry — asks for essentially nothing but a plug, but tops out near 5,000 BTU of supplemental warmth for about 400 square feet. On cool valley evenings that is plenty for a den; for the room where you actually live in January, the real gas heat wins.
The old flue still has to be dealt with
Whether you go gas or electric, that original masonry chimney needs attention — Henderson County's clay-heavy soil settles foundations and stresses older flues, so an aging Main Street or Laurel Park chimney rarely gets a clean bill without a look. For a gas insert we run a correctly sized stainless liner down it and pull the Henderson County permit for the gas work and inspection; that is licensed work and our trade. For an electric insert we simply block the flue off to stop the draft. Both fixes end the cold-air leak an open firebox creates — only gas also replaces the heat you are losing. We are 25 minutes north on Emma Road; call (828) 545-0525 to see a live gas flame beside a Dimplex before you decide.
Fireplace help in Hendersonville
We install and service fireplaces throughout Hendersonville and the rest of Henderson County — just 25 minutes south from our Asheville-area showroom.
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