Will converting my wood fireplace to gas improve my indoor air quality?
Usually a big yes in Waynesville. At nearly 2,650 feet your heating season runs about three weeks longer than Asheville's, and Hazelwood's drafty open fireplaces get burned hard through all of it — meaning months of wood particulate cycling through the house. Converting to gas cuts the smoke, ash, and creosote out of a room you're heating from October to April.
A longer burn season means longer exposure
Waynesville homes lean on their hearths more than lower WNC towns do — colder by 10 to 15 degrees, and heating weeks longer. The older Hazelwood and Frog Level housing stock is full of open masonry fireboxes that were never sealed, so every one of those extra burning weeks adds up to more fine particulate settling into rugs, curtains, and lungs. Trading wood for gas takes that whole input off the table for the length of a long mountain winter.
How much cleaner depends on the path
Two ways to make the switch. A gas log set restores the fire quickly and cheaply in your existing firebox, but a vented set still exhausts up the open chimney and a ventless set keeps its combustion byproducts in the room. A sealed insert is the real air-quality play: it closes off the drafty old box, and its exhaust leaves the house instead of your living room. For a home you heat this hard, the insert also gives you efficient, power-optional warmth.
Haywood permit, licensed gas connection
Waynesville runs on a mix of natural gas and propane depending on where you are, and we set up either. The fuel hook-up is licensed work in North Carolina — a mason can build a gorgeous surround but can't legally connect the gas — so we pull the Haywood County permit, pressure-test the line, and have the inspector verify it. We're 35 minutes west of the Asheville showroom. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Waynesville
We install and service fireplaces throughout Waynesville and the rest of Haywood County — just 35 minutes west from our Asheville-area showroom.
Related questions
- Does replacing an open wood fireplace with an insert improve the air in my house?
- Will a gas insert seal off the drafts and old smoke odors coming from my open fireplace chimney?
- Do wood-burning fireplaces pollute the air inside your house?
- Are direct vent gas fireplaces healthier than ventless ones?
- Will converting my wood fireplace to gas reduce my environmental impact?