Gas fireplace & doors

[Joe J]

I converted a wood burning fireplace to gas logs. My question is what is
more efficient? Keep the glass doors closed or open? The conversion
doesn't have a blower.
I always thought if you have the doors open, it draws heat from the furnace
up the flue. The gas fireplace doesn't heat the house, just the living
room, so the furnace does run while the fireplace is going. But, it doesn't
really throw a lot of heat out with the glass doors closed.

[Ralph Mowery]

Depending on the doors you may not have a choice.
Many of the ones I have seen say to leave the glass doors open while there is a fire going. That is for WOOD. You may need to check for the gas doors. I have not looked at any for gas logs.
Fire places are not a good way to heat a house if you have another source of heat going. As you said, with the doors open, most of the other heat of the house goes up the chimley.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, Our 3 FPs are all direct venting type. Glass door is semi-fixed(no hinges)) If I want tro open it for cleaning, etc. I have to remove a few screws. It is mounted air tight with gaskets all around. don't YOU have VS blower with yours? It blows heat into room. It is thermostat controlled, I can adjust blower speed with a knob.

[IGot2P]

That sounds like what we did on the last home that we built. Gas fired, direct vented, semi-permanent glass (can be removed for cleaning), flip a switch on the wall to light it, blower with a rotary knob on the wall to control the speed. I suspect that now you can get remotes rather than have controls on the wall but it is hard to misplace a wall. :-)
Don

[VinnyB]

On Tue, 3 Dec 2013 12:41:52 -0600, "Joe J" wrote in Re Gas fireplace & doors:

You didn't plug the flue?? How do you keep most of the gas flame heat from escaping up the flue?

I'm guessing that you won't get much heat no matter what you do. It's all going up the flue.

[IGot2P]

Unless it was a direct vented unit of course he did not plug the Flue!

[Joe J]

I converted a wood burning fireplace to gas logs. My question is what is more efficient? Keep the glass doors closed or open? The conversion doesn't have a blower.
I always thought if you have the doors open, it draws heat from the furnace up the flue. The gas fireplace doesn't heat the house, just the living room, so the furnace does run while the fireplace is going. But, it doesn't really throw a lot of heat out with the glass doors closed.
I guess I wasn't clear. This isn't an insert that went in. The original wood burning fireplace had a gas start feature to light the wood logs. Used that gas line to now have the gas logs. No blowers, no fixed glass panes and no switch to turn it on. Open the valve & manually light it. The fireplace has two glass doors that open and close and a standard open/close flue that goes up the chimney.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Then you did not increase efficiency of the FP. just made it convenient 'coz no meed to mess with ashes and dust. You should've done it right first and forget by installing direct vent insert and plug the chimney. Not only heat goes up the chimney, it draws fresh air from indoor too.