Ventless vs Vented gas fireplace

Go ventless. No reason to go vented IMO unless you wanted a real wood fireplace.

quote:

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Ventless

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No such thing. They all vent, some in the house and some outside. The "ventless" ones smell if you're going to use propane in my opinion. I have a ventless and hate it because of the strong smell. I don't think natural gas is as bad but still would prefer vented.

Us too.
Ours is ventless and it heats the living room and kitchen area up way too fast. That’s with two ceiling fans and 12’ ceilings in the living room. Looks great, but we hardly get to use it.

Some I’ve seen are sold with a thermostat remote. I was thinking that getting to hot wouldn’t be a problem with the thermostat

Yeah, this is the remote I use and it has thermostat.

The only negative to ventless is that they are outlawed in some municipalities.
The very municipalities that typically push "green" energies are the very ones the restrict the use of one of the most energy efficient home heat sources.

Ours is natural gas too. No propane.

If it’s an exterior wall, I’d vent it through the wall and decide later for vented vs vented insert. Otherwise, continue on:

I like the look of vented logs significantly better as they burn than ventless. For my wife’s birthday a couple of years back, I removed the old gas starter for a set of vented logs (I went with Peterson and learned way too darn much about the different options. You can literally find 5-30 second footage of essentially all of their sets burning on YouTube). Vented logs with an open flue still heat my great room significantly (~25ftx25ft, 9ft ceilings, so a fairly comparable space). Ventless gives you the option of “wasting” the heat (but you will still get some) and really heating your house. So if you want to gain a heat source at the expense of the aesthetic (unless you like the way ventless looks, but I can’t imagine that’s the case), vented wins. But you are removing a heat source that you don’t use and improving the aesthetics of the room; so that’s likely not going to be the best option (though when factoring in the cost of venting through a roof (if necessary) and how much better ventless logs look than an NG heater, the argument can look very different)
She is also a fan of fires in the summer. So with the old manual-key gas line, we installed a remote with standing pilot and adjustable flame. She has probably lit 400 fires in the last 500 days. If you are at all a fan of the look of fire in your house no matter the season, vented is the only way to go. If you want heat or the appearance of a fireplace, then either option is good (unless it’s going to cost way more for a vented set because you’re in a central location without good access for a flue)


What I wish I had known:
I really don’t use the flame control much, and it delays start/stop time significantly as the valve slowly opens. And you can manually control the gas from the valve regardless of the remote start you use. So I would probably opt for the milivolt pilot for the next one that I do. I don’t mind the standing on/off pilot. Mine has only gone out once, and it only took about 5 minutes to figure out how to relight it, but it just seems somewhat wasteful when the other option exists.

Ventless is perfect for my 2500 sq ft home . Takes chill out of the entire home and I can open a window to get perfect temp control.