What's the best option for converting a wood fireplace to electric?
In Arden we'll be straight with you: the 1980s and '90s open masonry fireplaces across Royal Pines and Skyland are already pulling warm air out of your rooms, and the conversion that fixes that best is a sealed gas insert — you're on the natural-gas main. Choose a Dimplex electric insert when the goal is looks: it seals the same leaky flue but adds only about 5,000 BTU.
Your open fireplace is the real problem
The open masonry fireplaces built into Arden's 1980s and '90s neighborhoods are net losers — they pull more heated air up the chimney than they return to the room, which is why houses around Royal Pines, Skyland, and Avery Creek feel drafty on winter nights. Any conversion we do starts by fixing that: damper sealed, flue capped, the leak closed for good. The question is what you get after the seal. Electric gives you a convincing flame and about 1,500 watts of warmth. A sealed gas insert gives you a genuine heater, commonly 70 percent efficient or better, running on the gas main that already serves the neighborhood — and with the right ignition, it still burns when the power doesn't.
Pick rooms, not sides
The way we'd actually spec an Arden house: gas insert in the family room, where the heat matters and the main makes it straightforward — licensed work, permitted with Buncombe County, inspected. Electric in the bedroom, the office, or the space where a fuel line was never going to make sense. The two answers aren't rivals; they're different rooms.
You're 15 minutes from the showroom at 629 Emma Rd, where the Dimplex flame burns beside live gas inserts — the fastest way to know your own mind. Call (828) 545-0525 for a free in-home assessment.
Fireplace help in Arden
We install and service fireplaces throughout Arden and the rest of Buncombe County — just 15 minutes south from our Asheville-area showroom.