Will a gas insert seal off the drafts and old smoke odors coming from my open fireplace chimney?
Yes. Whether you're in a hard-used WCU rental or a historic Dillsboro home, a gas insert seals the open firebox behind a stainless liner and surround panel, capping the flue that drafts your heat away and stopping the smoke odor that Sylva's river-valley damp keeps pushing back into the room. Two very different Jackson County houses, one clean fix.
Deferred maintenance and river damp
Sylva runs two housing extremes: student and rental housing near Cullowhee that's heavily used but inconsistently maintained, and historic Dillsboro cottages with older masonry chimneys. Both suffer the same way here — Tuckasegee valley cold-air drainage and river moisture rust dampers and degrade flue liners fast, and a neglected open flue drafts heat out while breathing stale creosote smell back in on damp days. Water sitting in a corroded damper is its own source of that musty smell. Deferred maintenance just makes both worse.
What sealing it fixes
A [gas insert](/services/gas-insert-installation) caps that open chimney with a stainless liner and seals the firebox face with a surround panel, so the great open draft is closed off and only the insert's own direct-vented exhaust moves through the flue. The cold draft stops, the smoke smell clears, and where the open fireplace ran a net heat loss, the insert commonly runs 70% efficient or better. We [inspect the flue and size the liner](/services/fireplace-inspection) first.
Licensed work, whatever the fuel
Sylva runs mixed — natural gas in parts of town, propane out toward the valleys — and we set the insert up for whichever you have. Either way, connecting the fuel is licensed work: we pull the Jackson County permit, pressure-test the line, and meet the inspector, the step a landlord's handyman legally can't finish. We're 50 minutes west of our Asheville showroom, so we plan the trip; call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Sylva
We install and service fireplaces throughout Sylva and the rest of Jackson County — just 50 minutes west from our Asheville-area showroom.
Related questions
- Does replacing an open wood fireplace with an insert improve the air in my house?
- Can an unused fireplace or chimney cause moisture and mold problems in the house?
- Why do I smell smoke in my house when the fireplace isn't even burning?
- Does a direct vent gas fireplace use the air in my room for combustion?
- Do gas fireplace inserts burn cleaner than gas log sets?