Much like purchasing any type of appliance, it is important to spend the time to choose the right hearth, patio or barbecue product that fits your needs. To help you learn more about the various types of products available, the HPBA offers objective, information-packed fact sheets on various types of products. For more information, visit a specialty retailer.
Sitting comfortably with friends or family in the backyard on a cool summer evening, with a warm fire and dinner sizzling on the grill, is pure pleasure. It is also the precise reason why people throughout North America are turning their yards and decks into inviting outdoor living spaces. People are extending the comfort and luxury of their homes into the great outdoors, and the result is the popular trend called the “outdoor room.”
If you live in an apartment or condo and dream of cozying up by the fire, there is an ideal solution: an electric fireplace. The warm, radiant heat of today’s electric fireplaces can be purchased at the store, carried home in the back of your car and installed in minutes. Simply plug the fireplace into an outlet and you’re ready to “fire it up”. It’s even easy to carry an electric fireplace up a flight of stairs. Electric fireplaces are designed to be plug-and-play appliances, much like a stereo or a television. Simply turn them off and on as needed, and enjoy them when the mood hits! With realistic fire technology that rivals a wood burning fire, the end result is snap, crackling great!
For people interested in enhancing the look and feel of an existing wood burning fireplace, the hearth industry has great news. It’s now easier to increase the efficiency of a fireplace by adding a fireplace insert. The installation of a fireplace insert can turn an occasional source of warmth into a convenient and easy-to-use supplemental zone heater that can help control high home heating bills while protecting winter air quality.
The fireplace is a beautifully visible part of the home. It plays an important role in our lives and is a sought-after feature for people looking to build or buy a house. The fireplace reflects the heart and soul of its owners, and can turn a plain room into an inviting retreat. One of the most exciting characteristics of a fireplace is its role as a design focal point, bringing together furniture, artwork, lamps and draperies in a pleasingly harmonious décor within a room.
With hundreds of designs, styles and sizes, there’s a gas fireplace for almost any home in North America. And, with a tremendous list of features, gas fireplaces offer many benefits, including convenience and ease-of-use. Excitingly, gas fireplaces are one of the hottest hearth products on the market for new and existing homes because of the incredible installation flexibility and wide array of log styles and flame choices. But, the best news about gas fireplaces is how much the fire looks, and performs, like real wood.
The ambiance of a flickering fire in the fireplace can take the edge off a hectic day and soothe away stress. For those with limited time or energy, building a welcoming fire isn’t always a simple task. But there is a solution. Install a set of gas logs into the fireplace and enjoy a fire in seconds, whether for an hour or the entire evening. Gas logs are easy to use, require little maintenance, and enhance the aesthetic appeal of a fireplace, whether turned on or off!
The key features of gas freestanding stoves are ambiance and convenience. With a push of a button, or the turn of the thermostat, the glowing, dancing fire in a gas stove is instantaneously warm and tremendously soothing. Then, just as quickly, the fire can be turned off! Gas stoves are both beautiful and efficient, serving as heaters as well as interior design elements. And, gas stoves today can help people with older central furnaces save money on the cost to heat their home. Yet, the newest feature to gas stoves is how much the fire looks like a wood burning fire!
The radiant heat and dancing flames of a fire in a fireplace or a freestanding stove can create a peaceful and relaxing gathering place within a home. To help people achieve this ambiance and warmth, there is now a wide variety of hearth products designed to suit almost any lifestyle and home design. But, one of the most exciting components of hearth products is the variety of fuel options that make the installation of stoves, fireplaces, fireplace inserts, masonry heaters and log sets possible in almost any home in North America.
Once you experience a pellet stove, it’s easy to understand why people rave about these efficient and unique home heaters that generate an automated, economical and earth-friendly wood heat…and all without firewood! For just pennies an hour, a pellet stove can deliver a deep, penetrating warmth that provides independence from high heating bills while emitting almost no wood smoke. And, with tremendous flexibility in installation and sizing, pellet stoves are a sophisticated choice for convenient heat that helps protect the environment and doesn’t break the bank.
On a chilly evening there is nothing more relaxing than gathering around a warm, cozy fire that radiates rich, soothing heat. The only greater comfort comes from knowing that you are also helping to protect your neighborhood air quality from excessive wood smoke. So, how can you enjoy a wood fire that emits very little smoke? The answer is simple…burn wood responsibly!
The look, smell and feel of a wood burning fireplace can soothe the soul while generating a deep and relaxing warmth within a home. And, thanks to more than a decade of research and development by the hearth industry, there are now wood burning fireplaces that offer benefits well beyond just ambiance. These benefits include heat, convenience, energy independence, security and a cost-effective way to control fluctuating energy bills, not to mention reduced emissions that can help people burn wood responsibly to help protect winter air quality.
Why a wood stove? The answers are simple – comforting, economical and environmentally-friendly. Whether it’s the warm glow of the fire, the crackle of the wood or the deep warmth, wood stoves have a way of making people feel relaxed and right at home. Yet, in addition to ambiance, wood stoves today produce a low-cost heat that helps protect winter air quality and reduces the threat of global warming.
Why should you heat the whole house if you are only planning on sitting in the living room for hours? Instead, use zone heating to heat only the rooms you are in. Heating only those rooms will not only save you hundreds of dollars a year on your energy bills, but it also will save our energy resources and reduce wear and tear on your heating appliances.