What's the best fireplace for a vacation home or second home that sits empty part of the year?
A propane direct-vent unit that actually heats. Out in Candler most homes run on propane, and the decorative builder-grade fireboxes going into the new subdivisions here were never designed to warm a house — let alone protect an empty one through a cold snap. A sealed LP unit with power-optional ignition does both.
The builder-box problem, Candler edition
Candler is growing fast, and the new subdivisions around Enka-Candler and Sand Hill mostly ship with basic decorative fireboxes — pretty on a listing photo, useless in a February outage. Owners here typically want a real heat-producing upgrade within a few years, and for a second home the case is stronger still: the fireplace is the appliance that protects the house when you're not in it. Kozy Heat's Springfield 36 is the propane workhorse we recommend most, and a millivolt option like the Valor H5 — no blower, no circuit board — keeps radiant heat coming through a multi-day grid failure with nobody home to notice it happened. An annual tune-up from $189, late summer, keeps the burner and pilot clean after the idle months.
Clean burning matters in the Hominy Valley bowl
Hominy Valley sits in a natural bowl, which is exactly the topography where clean-burning sealed appliances earn their keep — no open hearth smoldering smoke into still valley air, no open flue pulling damp drafts through a closed-up house. Propane out here means we handle the whole fuel side under our gas-contractor license: regulator, piping, and appliance connection, with the tank coordinated through your propane supplier and the permit pulled with Buncombe County. Our guide to [natural gas versus propane in WNC](/guides/natural-gas-vs-propane-in-wnc) covers the differences; the short version is that propane burns hotter per unit and needs the orifices and pressures set right — setup work, not a drawback.
We're 15 minutes east at 629 Emma Rd — call (828) 545-0525 for a free in-home assessment.
Fireplace help in Candler
We install and service fireplaces throughout Candler and the rest of Buncombe County — just 15 minutes west from our Asheville-area showroom.