Which fireplace still works during a power outage — gas, wood, or electric?
For Arden, wood works through any outage, gas works only if it lights on a millivolt pilot or battery backup, and electric is finished the moment the power is. In Royal Pines and Skyland, though, the common fireplace is an open masonry box — and during an outage that box works against you, drawing heat out of the room.
An open fireplace is worse than nothing in a blackout
The 1980s-and-'90s homes across Royal Pines and Skyland typically have open masonry fireplaces, and they're tired heat-losers — an open hearth pulls warm room air up the chimney, and with the furnace down in an outage, that's the opposite of what you want. A sealed gas insert on a millivolt valve, or a wood insert with a liner, turns that hole in the wall into a real heater that keeps radiating with the grid down. The upgrade pays off every ordinary winter too, not just during outages.
Natural gas is on your side here
Arden sits on the south-Asheville natural-gas mains, so a millivolt gas insert like a Valor, or a battery-backup Napoleon, makes a clean and convenient backup-heat plan — flame at the flip of a switch that still lights when the power's out. Skip the wall-powered electronic units with no battery; they won't light grid-down. The blower stops either way, but the radiant heat keeps coming on the units built for it, and radiant is what warms a room when the fan can't run. That's the quiet reason a sealed insert beats the open masonry box it replaces — it heats by radiation, which no blackout can switch off, and it stops bleeding warm air up the flue the rest of the winter too.
Homes and Biltmore Park alike, permitted
From Skyland homes to Biltmore Park's retail and office spaces, gas work is licensed in North Carolina — we permit with Buncombe County, pressure-test the line, and meet the inspector. We're 15 minutes south. Call (828) 545-0525 for a free in-home assessment of your fireplace's outage performance.
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.
Related questions
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