Our Fireplace Solution
I'm tired of winter! Already.
Unlike last year, our second fall season in Santa Fe has been cold and overcast. September got chilly too early, October got wet and dreary, and all of November felt like midwinter with only occasional bits of warm sunshine at times. There is snow on the ground as I write this post.
And it's a raw cold. The furnace roars, I'm tired of wearing socks all the time. Bah. But . . .
. . . it's Christmas and it's fireplace season, so there's that.
And I finally found a solution to our fireplace problem.
Last year, even though it was constantly dry and sunny and warm, we did try to have wood fires in our fireplace. It didn't work well. The two-way narrow firebox, open on both sides, never contained the fire, and smoke came into the room. We tried the glass doors open, we tried them closed, we tried combinations of open and closed, and all we got was smoke in the house. Even if we got a fire going well and kept puffs of smoke from billowing out, the house just smelled terribly of smoke for the next week.
We tried those fake Duraflame logs and they made the house smell like kerosene.
I would love to convert the fireplace to gas, but the entire fireplace structure sits in the middle of the house, with no adjoining walls. The floor is a slab. It would be impossible to run a gas line to the firebox.
What finally solved the problem was fake logs and ethanol. We bought a grate that holds a metal pan that is surrounded by faux ceramic logs. You pour ethanol into the pan underneath the logs and light it.
The ethanol comes in plastic soda-type quart bottles. The logs hide the metal pan, although not as cleverly as the product page picture shows. It burns totally clean, no smoke, you don't even need to open the flue. I do miss the crackle of a wood fire, though, and the ethanol flame gives off little heat.
The logs look terribly fake, but no more phony than most gas fireplace inserts. I got extra logs to pile up around the metal pan to hide it better.
Two bottles burn nicely and make a constant flame for exactly two hours and 45 minutes, which is a perfect amount of time for wine and snacks followed by dinner. Because the flame is visible on both the living room and the dining room side, that works out well.
It doesn't give off much heat, but it's pretty.
The ethanol is not cheap, it costs $5.85 per quart bottle, which is good compared to the cost of trying to run a gas line or even the cost of having a cord of wood brought in I suppose. But I'm sparing with the fires because I'm aware of burning up the fuel each time.
So that's how we solved our fireplace problem. It's fake, it looks phony, it doesn't give off heat, it doesn't crackle or pop, and we have fires only sparingly due to cost, but oh, how I love an occasional pretty fire dancing in our fireplace on these cold (and snowy!) fall days before Christmas.
Unlike last year, our second fall season in Santa Fe has been cold and overcast. September got chilly too early, October got wet and dreary, and all of November felt like midwinter with only occasional bits of warm sunshine at times. There is snow on the ground as I write this post.
And it's a raw cold. The furnace roars, I'm tired of wearing socks all the time. Bah. But . . .
. . . it's Christmas and it's fireplace season, so there's that.
And I finally found a solution to our fireplace problem.
Last year, even though it was constantly dry and sunny and warm, we did try to have wood fires in our fireplace. It didn't work well. The two-way narrow firebox, open on both sides, never contained the fire, and smoke came into the room. We tried the glass doors open, we tried them closed, we tried combinations of open and closed, and all we got was smoke in the house. Even if we got a fire going well and kept puffs of smoke from billowing out, the house just smelled terribly of smoke for the next week.
We tried those fake Duraflame logs and they made the house smell like kerosene.
I would love to convert the fireplace to gas, but the entire fireplace structure sits in the middle of the house, with no adjoining walls. The floor is a slab. It would be impossible to run a gas line to the firebox.
What finally solved the problem was fake logs and ethanol. We bought a grate that holds a metal pan that is surrounded by faux ceramic logs. You pour ethanol into the pan underneath the logs and light it.
The ethanol comes in plastic soda-type quart bottles. The logs hide the metal pan, although not as cleverly as the product page picture shows. It burns totally clean, no smoke, you don't even need to open the flue. I do miss the crackle of a wood fire, though, and the ethanol flame gives off little heat.
The logs look terribly fake, but no more phony than most gas fireplace inserts. I got extra logs to pile up around the metal pan to hide it better.
Two bottles burn nicely and make a constant flame for exactly two hours and 45 minutes, which is a perfect amount of time for wine and snacks followed by dinner. Because the flame is visible on both the living room and the dining room side, that works out well.
It doesn't give off much heat, but it's pretty.
The ethanol is not cheap, it costs $5.85 per quart bottle, which is good compared to the cost of trying to run a gas line or even the cost of having a cord of wood brought in I suppose. But I'm sparing with the fires because I'm aware of burning up the fuel each time.
So that's how we solved our fireplace problem. It's fake, it looks phony, it doesn't give off heat, it doesn't crackle or pop, and we have fires only sparingly due to cost, but oh, how I love an occasional pretty fire dancing in our fireplace on these cold (and snowy!) fall days before Christmas.
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