Fireplace Gas Logs - Practical Tips

I always thought that fireplace gas logs were pretty tacky. You see, I am a big believer in form following function. It's fine if you are having a fire in the fireplace. Fireplace logs look the way they do because that is what they are. If you're going to use a gas burning fireplace, why make it look like it is filled with real logs? It doesn't make sense. Using a fireplace gas log is just a form of nostalgia, you see. If you want a real wood burning fire, have one. Otherwise don't.

On the other hand, I was really impressed with the realism when I was over at my cousins house - a cousin who has fireplace gas logs. The fireplace gas logs really looked like the original. For years I have been burning wood in my fireplace. In the middle of the room where I grew up, there was free standing fireplace. Although my parents had installed internal heating, we still had the old wood burning stove that we could use to heat the house. It looked great and cozy and was very practical. It really offered a cheap way to heat the entire house

Those fireplace gas logs looked so real. The style of the fireplace was remarkably like the one that I'd grown up with, and each fireplace gas log looked like it had been hand split and thrown on a pile of wood. for someone who grown up burning real fire place logs I had to admit that it provided a tempting imitation. I wondered what would happen if you grew up in a house that burns fireplace gas logs? Would a real fireplace burning real wood look like an attempt to simulate the cozy fire that you had grown up with? Would you never become attached to fire in the same way that people who grew up burning wood were? It really is hard to know!

Although I like my cousin's direct vent fireplace, I still like having a real wood burning fireplace a little bit better. The fireplace gas logs are great. They are much better than I would have thought. But if you ask me, nothing beats the real thing. No matter how good it looks, it is not a real fireplace if you can't see the wood spark, can't stir the fire with a poker, and can't smell the smell of burning timber. Maybe it is better than nothing, but it is still not quite real. That is my opinion for now of course. Either way a fireplace is nice to have. Just be careful and enjoy it.