Fireplaces, fireplace inserts, and heating stoves offer many benefits. They increase your home’s comfort and can lower your heating bills. They allow you to focus your heat on the rooms you spend the most time in, and they add ambiance and value to your home. If you’ve decided to invest in a new stove, fireplace, or fireplace insert, you have many options for fuel. So which choice is right for your home?
Natural gas
Natural gas has become the leading choice in home heating appliances, with more than 70 percent of fireplaces, fireplace inserts, and stoves now relying on gas. Gas is valued for its convenience. Gas fireplaces or stoves can be installed in almost any room, and with the flip of a switch or the push or a remove button, you can be enjoying roaring fire. Gas fireplaces and stoves offer the most efficient heating source. With a gas stove, between 70 to 99 percent of the energy is converted to heat. Gas fireplaces, logs, and stoves also have made great strides in design, now featuring logs and flames that replicate the look of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. Of course, more modern designs also are available.
Wood
Wood is, of course, the classic choice for fireplaces and stoves. In the last 20 years, wood-burning stoves and fireplaces have made great strides in energy efficiency, and EPA-certified models of fireplace inserts and stoves return the majority of the wood’s energy to heat while emitting very little particulate matter from your chimney. Of course, one of the major appeals of a wood-burning stove or fireplace is that the fuel is readily available, natural, and very low cost, or even free for people who cut, season, and store their own firewood. Wood does have to be chopped, or bought in large quantities, stacked, and hauled, but for many, the traditional feel and ambiance of a wood fire more than makes up for the inconvenience.
Pellets 
Pellet stoves have been an increasingly popular heating choice in recent years. The stoves rely on pellets made of compressed wood or sawdust, or biofuels such as corn, cherry pits, or wheat hulls. Pellets allow people who enjoy the smell and look of a wood fire to continue to do so with less hassle than a log-burning stove or fireplace. Because pellets can be purchased in 40 pound bags at most hardware or big-box stores, there’s no need for storing and hauling large quantities. Once a hopper is filled with pellets, an auger automatically feeds the fire, so a pellet fire can burn for up to a day without any tending. Pellets also burn very cleanly and efficiently because they contain little water.
Let Magic Broom help you make the right choice
If you’re trying to decide on the right heating appliance, call the experts at Magic Broom Chimney Sweeps. We can help you find the right appliance for your home.