by Frankie Zeller
There was a time when nearly everyone had some sort of chimney, but those days are long gone. Now days most homes don't have actual chimneys, so there had to be a new type of fire place, which is known as a zero clearance fire places. This sounds very high tech and futuristic, but in fact it's actually a very simple concept.
Granted you will probably need to call on a professional to have it done, but essentially the zero clearance fireplace is just a fireplace that literally allows you to shim directly to the wall allowing no clearance between itself and the wall. In addition to that, it has another feature that many people are going to find rather useful.
My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
The zero clearance fireplace has the ability to provide a home with a roaring fire without the use of a chimney. That's right, this fireplace can hook directly into the house's ventilation system allowing the smoke to escape without being built up within the chimney. If you don't have a chimney then you can obviously see the benefits of installing something like this!
One of the cool parts about this is that you can move the fireplace anywhere you want in the home. This is definitely a great move for the woodburning fireplaces, and remember that while the fireplace looks permanent, you can move it anytime you want, anywhere you want, with no issue whatsoever.
Though you might be able to get yourself a zero clearance fireplace at a discount, you're going to find that for the most part these are incredibly expensive. They can run from $500 to $3000, depending on what model you decide to purchase.
At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a charity-house, which we looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariners might fare. Far away in some desolate hollow by the seaside, just within the bank, stands a lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for shipwrecked men! What kind of sailor’s homes were they?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
One of the best that you can purchase is the Napoleon BGD42CFN. This is a great zero clearance fireplace that has reflective panels and is able to create four great fires in the huge fireplace. This model costs around $2000 and you can expect years of great service from it.
It is unfortunate that the days of the roaring fire are pretty much gone, but it's not a horrible thing, because now your chimney won't be stationary, and you can place it wherever you feel like it. You could probably even put it outside the house if you really wanted to, but why would you want to?
Now that you know you can experience the warmth and glow of a great fireplace without having to abuild a big red chimney, you'll probably be wanting to get one, and who can blame you? Look online for great deals, or head over to your home improvement store to get information on a great zero clearance fireplace.