Our freestanding gas stoves are designed to stand in a room without being surrounded by any other materials, i.e. surrounded by air on all sides.
A freestanding stove is very practical for either new construction or retrofitting into an existing home. It will be the simplest to add, as it does not have surrounding framing nor does it need a fireplace to install into like an insert requires.
Our insert style gas stoves are designed to be installed into an existing, code-complying wood burning fireplace.
Because of the need for a preexisting fireplace, an insert would not be an appropriate choice for new home construction or a major addition.
When your home already has a fireplace, the benefit is that it allows you to change that inefficient, decorative fireplace into an efficient heat producer without sacrificing more floor space.
Otherwise called a “zero clearance” gas fireplace, our built-in gas fireplaces are constructed out of metal and are designed to be enclosed in wood or other materials.
These fireplaces will come in two sub-categories: either high efficiency (sometimes called heater rated) and decorative. High efficiency, built-in gas fireplaces are designed to heat either a large room or an entire house. Decorative gas fireplaces are designed to look nice, but not be efficient heat producers.
A built-in fireplace can be just as efficient as a freestanding stove or an insert, if you choose a high efficiency unit. It will need to be framed in and surrounded by a wall in your home, or bumped out through an exterior wall and enclosed in a box, which we term a “chase”. You can pick from a large variety of fireplaces and finishes to make this a real architectural statement in your home.
A built-in fireplace can also come in a decorative model that will not be an efficient heater. A decorative gas fireplace is often installed by builders who are not aware of benefits offered by high efficiency, heater rated fireplaces. At High Country Stoves, we believe that in a cold climate like Wyoming, homeowners don’t want just the “pretty face” of a decorative fireplace but they want an attractive flame pattern as well as an efficient heater when they are burning gas.
A fusion of fire and contemporary design, these custom fireplaces are the epitome of decorative style.
With a made-to-order gas fireplace, you can enjoy the best fire presentation of any linear fireplace on the market.
Why our customers in Southeastern Wyoming and North Central Colorado love our gas stoves for heating their homes
Gas stoves and fireplaces have come a long way in the last 15 years. A lot of times when a gas stove is mentioned, people think of the old “cabinet” style heaters that may have a small viewing area where a glow or a small flame could be seen. Nothing could be further from what is available to view today.
Today’s gas stoves and fireplaces look very real, as if they are really burning wood. The logs and sometimes the burners themselves are made up of ceramic fiber. The logs are sculpted and painted to look just like real wood. Because of the lightweight ceramic fiber that they are constructed of, the logs glow red and appear as if they are burning up when heated by the gas flame. The biggest complement we can have when we complete a fireplace installation is for the homeowner to have friends over who ask when they are going to add another piece of wood to their fire.
In addition to their good looks, our high efficiency, heater rated stoves and fireplaces are extremely efficient–more efficient than their old “cabinet” style cousins, and more efficient than your modern forced air furnace.
WHAT was that?
Yes, because our new high efficiency stoves put their heat directly into your living space instead of into a ducted system that tries to heat the entire house equally (and doesn’t succeed) you can actually reduce the amount of gas consumed and keep your house warmer! You heat the space where you spend the majority of your time (called zone heating) and let the heat flow naturally to the other rooms in your home. And the best part is, when you come in from outside in the middle of a snow storm and you are freezing cold, you can warm yourself in front of your new gas stove or fireplace with all of the wonderful radiant heat emanating from the glass.
Come visit High Country Stoves in Laramie, Wyoming, where our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you pick the perfect gas fireplace for your home.
Direct Vent Versus “B-Vent” Gas Appliances
99% of the quality gas appliances on the market today use a direct vent to expel the flue gases from the combustion chamber of the appliance. A direct vent pipe system is either co-axial or co-linear. A co-axial vent is one pipe inside of the other. The inner pipe is where the hot exhaust gases exit the stove, and the space between the inner pipe and the outer pipe is where fresh combustion air enters the stove. A co-linear vent, typically used on a fireplace insert, has two tubes alongside of one another. One is used for exhaust and the other is for fresh air intake.
The advantage of a direct vent appliance is multi-fold. Instead of using the already warm air from the room, a direct vent stove or fireplace uses cold outside air for combustion, instead of air that has already been warmed inside the house. This is more efficient and also has the added benefit of separating the appliance from the pressure differentials in the house. So a direct vent appliance not only is more efficient because of using cold outside air, a potential negative pressure inside the home also does not affect the way your stove burns.
By contrast, a B-vent stove uses already warmed room air for combustion and then takes additional air out of your home with a draft hood. This is an opening located after the combustion chamber and before the single passage exhaust vent connecting to the stove. The draft hood pulls more air out of the house that has already been warmed, using it to dilute the moisture-laden air produced by the combustion of gas in the appliance. This is needed to keep the water held by heat in the form of steam from condensing and forming moisture condensation that would drip or run out of the stove and vent.
Direct vent appliances are tested and rated to be installed in mobile homes regulated by HUD. They can be installed into bedrooms where flue gas spillage is a big concern for b-vent appliances. They are tested to the same standards that wall furnaces are, and some people don’t even install a furnace into their new home, instead preferring to use multiple stoves to heat an entire house.