When you see the picture of the perfect American living room in a home, there's a cozy room with a couch, recliner and a fireplace burning beautifully. People love to sit by the fireplace watching the flames encircling the logs. Not only does the fireplace add warmth but it adds atmosphere. Unfortunately a fireplace in a home is not perfect. There are many issues that make a fireplace very inefficient. When a fireplace is burning, it radiates warmth into the air around it. But it also creates a current so that the warm air is pulled out of the room and up the chimney. Your fireplace has to work harder to make up for the warm air that is escaping. The damper on the chimney is supposed to keep the air from coming in or escaping from the house. But most are not constructed very well and the seal around the edges of the damper still allows air to escape. There are some things you can do to fix this problem. There is a damper that you can buy which is installed at the top of the chimney. This type of damper works similar to a storm door and air cannot get around it. You can get such a product online and you can install it yourself if you're comfortable going on top of your roof. Another option you have is to change your wood burning fireplace into a gas fireplace. You can get a gas fireplace insert which can look just like a regular wood burning fireplace. The logs in these heaters look like they are truly burning. Depending on your home construction and budget, you have several options on how to install and vent the fireplace. Most gas fireplaces use propane or natural gas sources. Many homeowners go with this type of change because they get tired of having to keep cut wood around and disposing of the ashes. A gas fireplace eliminates that need. You can also replace your fireplace with an electric heater. There are portable electric heaters that look just like fireplaces. You can get an electric fireplace heater that has a fan which can very efficiently heat a whole room quickly. Electric heaters are very efficient in the way that they heat a room. 100% of the electricity that is used is turned into heat and put back out into the room. One drawback is that the thermostat is normally in the main room which holds the fireplace. The room with the fireplace becomes very warm and the thermostat turns off the heat. This makes rooms in the rest of the home cooler because the fireplace is not heating them. This may cause you to look into getting a portable space heater for other rooms in your home.
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