THE PITCH
If you’ve ever been to the local gas company to check out gas heaters you have undoubtedly met Bubba. Bubba is a sales guy that walks you around showing you all the gas stoves, logs and fireplaces he has that will heat your 2,000 square foot home with 99.9% efficiency. He’ll tell you how great his products are and that they are so clean burning that they don’t even need a chimney! The flames are pretty on those logs and as soon as he fires them up you feel the nice warm heat pouring out of the firebox surrounding you with cozy heat. Ahhhhh, doesn’t that feel nice? The problem is that Bubba is not telling you the whole story.
You see, Bubba likes to sell vent-free stuff becasue he does not have to have a professional installer on staff. Anyone, including his truck driver can hook gas up to a vent-free heater with very minimal knowledge and experience. Bubba or one of his crew can be in and out of your house with a check in a couple of hours.
Now, with that kind of turnaround, who wouldn’t love vent-free? If he schedules jobs within close proximity to each other, Bubba can do several installations in one day and never go back until you have a complaint. Chances are, that will be sooner than you think. Click the tab above for what Bubba left out. You deserve to know.
THE TRUTH
The truth is, most people are extremely dissatisfied with vent-free appliances in the home. The reason is simple, THEY ARE TOXIC!
Yes, ALL vent-free appliances emit toxic by-products of combustion – no matter what Bubba says. They are just tuned to the point that the emissions, when PROPERLY USED are not considered a significant health risk.
It is perfectly legal and acceptable for a vent-free appliance to leave the factory with carbon monoxide (CO) emission levels at 5 parts per million (ppm) or below! WOW, that is leaving a cleanroom environment with those emissions of a colorless, odorless, toxic poison! 9PPM will cause brain damage or death if you remain inside with the source for extended periods of time! Here’s a thought to ponder; what happens with those carbon monoxide levels after being in your house for 60 days? Dust settling on the burner from the fireplace damper, Pet dander being pulled into the firebox, etc.? I don’t know about your house, but my house is not a lab cleanroom environment. As the environment of the combustion process changes, so does the efficiency of the combustion process and emission levels.
“BUT BUBBA TOLD ME ABOUT THE ODS DEVICE AND HOW SAFE IT WAS”. Think back to what Bubba said that device was. It is called an OXYGEN DEPLETION SENSOR. That device ONLY senses when OXYGEN levels in the room have dropped below a safe level. It does not monitor sooting or carbon monoxide AT ALL.
Last year I had a couple of very upset customers who had vent-free products in their homes. One had vent free logs in their fireplace. They were working just fine. They were a thermostatic model that turned themselves on and off as the room cooled and warmed up. Sometime in the night the logs malfunctioned. When the owner got up the next morning and came out of their bedroom, the whole house was covered in black soot. Soot was hanging from the curtain rods and ceiling fans. The logs were still working in the fireplace! The painting bill was over $25,000 to paint the house.
The most sad story was similar. I don’t know who would sell vent free fireplaces for a 7,500 square foot dream home but they did. THE VERY DAY the owners moved in they fired up the fireplaces to heat up the house. They warmed up so quickly, they decided that would be the way to go. 2 days later, BAM! the house is black and it cost almost $50,000 to clean and paint!
I had a contractor hire me to remove all the vent-free fireplaces form a remodel job of his and replace them with direct vent units. I noticed the fireplaces and home were pretty new so I asked about the remodel. Turns out the owner had used the vent-free fireplaces as the heat for the house and as a result, essentially dumped about 6 to 8 gallons of water in the house every day in the form of water vapor, a natural by-product of vent-free appliances. after a couple seasons you could count the studs in the walls as the sheetrock had saturated with water and bowed in between the studs!
PROPER USE
There is a proper use for vent-free heaters. Follow these and you should be ok with regular maintenance;
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MAINTENANCE: Never miss an annual service by a professional. Keep the logs and burner free from debris or dust.
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VENTILLATION: open a window in the room to allow fresh air. about 3 inches should work. Vent-free appliances consume huge amounts of oxygen from the room and it must be replenished.
Here’s a thought; If you follow instructions and open a window in the winter while you are using your logs and the window lets in the same amount of cold air as the amount of warm air the logs is consuming, how efficient do you think that is? I know it is no even close to that 99.9% number we talked about earlier. I also know it is less efficient that about ANY direct-vent fireplace on the market.
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Only use for short amount of time to quickly warm a room. NEVER use as a primary heat source unless it is an emergency situation for survival such as a power outage during a blizzard.
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Make sure your logs are in their proper position and out of the path of the flame. Flame impingement is a major cause of sooting.
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Check under your mantle with a white cloth to check for early signs of sooting. If you discover sooting, turn off the logs and call a professional for service.
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Do not use a vent-free heater while sleeping. A malfunction is noticeable but only if you’re up.
It is no secret we’re not big promoters of unveted heaters but that does not change the fact that there are millions of these things in homes.
