At the lake house, the previous owners had an old wood burning fireplace in the living room.
Truth be told, it just looked unsafe and wasn’t vented with current building code so we never planned to use it. Partnered with it protruding easily three feet into the room and the new staircase was walking right into it, we wanted to replace it with something sleeker.
I started pricing out new zero clearance propane fireplaces new and it was going to be upwards of $8,000 installed. We knew we wouldn’t be able to afford that to install before winter.
Propane gas fireplace found on Facebook Marketplace.
John found a zero clearance propane fireplace on Facebook Marketplace for $500 that had been hardly used. Check with your local building code and the Environmental Protection Agency for regulations. Some states, like Massachusetts, do not allow resale of gas appliances. Because we bought it New Hampshire and were installing in New Hampshire, we didn’t have an issue.
John took down the old chimney and reframed the wall to include a bump out to house the fireplace and venting. Check out the reel on Instagram of this project.
He then ran the propane line with shut offs, installed the stove, and wired the thermostat. We wanted to make sure this new wall was a well insulated as the rest of the house so John used a combination of spray foam, foam board and fiberglass insulation. Then he installed the venting and air sealed the area.
While the fireplace worked right away, we had some trouble getting it connected to a thermostat. First we tried a smart thermostat, then a Nest—neither worked. After spending some time on the phone with Nest customer support, John determined that the fireplace required a millivolt, low voltage thermostat.
Viola! Heat! While we were hoping for a smart thermostat so we could monitor the lake house from home, being able to just set it at 65 and know the house will remain warm allows us to keep the house open this winter.
Cost breakdown:
$500 fireplace
$400 vent kit
$250 insulation
$200 framing
$20 thermostat (after returning $150 and $70 “smart” thermostats)
Total cost: $1370
Doing it ourselves took maybe three days of labor and cost a lot less than buying new. Again, check with local building codes, some states may not allow homeowners to work with gas lines.
I can’t wait to sit in front of the fireplace on a snowy day (okay, I can wait for the snow).