there are far far far more dilemmas here involving people hating how their fireplace looks or how its sited, vs not having one. the odds of you finding one in an existing home that you like i think is darn close to nil based on evidence here.

i have two homes, 0 working fireplaces. beach house we put candles and smooth stones in the (not up to code) firebox. 1870 residence has 2 chimneys but no fireplace. i'm good with that.

i'd like a gas fireplace in the perfect location, but beach house lacks gas and residence lacks location, so... there you have it.

Fireplace isn't high on my priority list, while I would like one, if the house is nice then the fireplace is not a deal breaker. I live in Toronto, so its really cold in winter, fireplace comes in handy but still not essential with a good central heating.

installing a fireplace can often be easier than one may think, and, as nnigrt correctly mentioned, you have a better chance of having a fireplace that you're satisfied with if you have it done yourself. I would not rule out a house on that basis alone

Great question, I had to think about this one!I have a wood burning one, and we never use it as nobody wants to babysit the fire. But if I were buying or building, I'd love a gas fireplace, but would accept a wood burning one over no fireplace.

I would recommend a nice wood burning stove instead. Most traditional fireplaces pull more heat out of houses than they provide unless they have an insert.

You can get wood burning stoves in many styles, shapes and sizes and they are a great heat source when sized correctly. Very popular in cold Scandinavian countries. Easy to have installed too.

If the house you find doesn't have one, which might be better. I would say have a well installed gas heating fireplace put in. I come from Co. myself. I know all about the crazy cold. I also grew up heating a house with nothing but a potbelly stove. I Hate wood burning. It's a mess, keeping wood in the cold is a pain, getting or running out of wood in the extreme cold is a pain. If you get a house that doesn't already have one you have the benefit of adding exactly what you want where you want it. Such as family room and master. Or Living room and dining room. Just examples. If you buy a house with one existing you have to deal with making sure it works properly. Was it installed correctly and so on. Starting from scratch in this situation would be easier and probably less expensive in the long run.

I didn't want a fireplace but every house I looked at had one and I live in the Dallas area. Lol.

@jdcollects. The same with us. We didn't want or need one here in Savannah Ga, but couldn't find a house without one. Wood burning yet. We had it sealed off. I think I'm going to make it into a cabinet.

Mine is wood burning or gas. It's purely decorative for me.

Living in the Caribbean, the sun is the only fireplace we need. Lol lol lol

Judy Henry I'm pouting now. I'm also secretly plotting to camp on your lawn. ;p

A fireplace has never been on my priority list when looking for a house! I lived in a house for 25 years that did not have a fireplace. We now have one in the living room but it has not been used in over 50 years. I will be cleaning all of the brick in the fireplace so that I can paint all of the brick.

@Bev, even if you don't plan to use it you should have it inspected. It could have structural issues after all that time.

Thanks rollinggirl! It was inspected when they did the house inspection before we moved in last year. Like the rest of the house, it is in great shape especially for a fireplace and house that is over 70 years old. The previous owners never used the fireplace and that's how I know it has not been used for many years since they lived in the house for 48 years!

Good to hear Bev. Sounds like you got a winner.

@Cancork, you make a really good point. My wood burning fireplace (that never gets used) does drain a lot of heat in the winter. I'm changing my vote from to No to Yes.

We had a house in Kentucky that had duct work throughout the house to enable a wood burning stove to help heat the house. It worked very well. We had low heating bills in that house.

We have a traditional fireplace that is in no condition to use. We wouldn't anyway. I had the chimney capped off and sealed at the bottom. We built a box to fit in the firebox to clean it up. Eventually I'll decide what I want to do with it design wise. For now it isn't draining the house.

For over 30 years, we had both wood burning or gas fireplaces in all our previous Michigan and Florida homes that were rarely used. Very happy we were able to design our current home in Florida with NO fireplace.

I was all about getting a house with a fireplace when I moved to Utah. It was great for a while but two things happened - I got tired of babysitting it and there were many days I couldn't burn due to inversions. After 5 years in UT, I moved to Northern CA and the house came with a gas burning fireplace. It added absolutely nothing to the warmth of the house and frankly, it lost the appeal when all I needed to do was turn on a switch to get it started. Now I am about to purchase another home back in Utah - new construction so there is an option for a fireplace which I decided to forgo. Gas fireplaces are typically smaller and IMHO add nothing to a house except a mantel to decorate over the holidays. I prefer the extra ceiling to floor window I can get by not taking up the space on the wall with the fireplace.

I don't want a fireplace and would remove mine, but am leaving it for resale. I live in the SW desert and there is really no need for a fireplace. It might be useful for about a week out of the year, but that is not worth the amount of floor and wall space it takes up as well as impeding furniture placement. I had mice move in one year and had to put an even smaller screen over the vent that was already there.

Now, if I lived in a cold climate, I might actually use it and enjoy it. I think it all depends on the climate. I still can't understand why they are in every house in Florida and the Southwest. So YES I would buy and do want a house without a fireplace.

The fireplace in our old home was rarely used and was the source of issues such as bugs and roof leaks from the flashing. It also is not an efficient way of heating.

When we build our new home 2 years ago, we decided to forego a fireplace to avoid these issues as well as having more wall-space. In case of a power-outage, we invested in a backup generator.

We have no regrets.

I live in MN, and we have a gas fireplace. However, it died a few years ago and I'm just now getting around to fixing/replacing it. I did miss the ambiance every now and then, but that's about it. Most of my neighbors do not have one, and we have all survived just fine with our -50 wind chills. That said, if you really love your fireplace, then you should definitely not compromise. For me, it's not a deal breaker.

Love an outdoor fireplace too!

I have a previousLynwood burning fireplace that had draft problems so we added gas log -the fireplace already had a gas starter so there was no Trounless with install. We love it! I live 15 miles south of San Francisco.

We've had wood-burning fireplaces, gas fireplaces, and no fireplaces. We didn't miss having a fireplace in the 'no' houses.

Gas fireplaces were ok, but never put out much heat. They also seemed like decoration as opposed to warming in the colder months.

Our current fireplace is a huge wood-burning brick behemoth that has the size and hardware to cook food in. It also heats up the (ap. 17' x 33' x 14' h) great room very, very well.

Amongst no, gas, or wood, we prefer wood.

We have had fireplaces in all of our homes and have experienced both wood burning and gas. Loved the gas in Alaska. When we retired to Olympic Peninsula in Washington state we thought long and hard about the need of a fireplace. We opted for no fireplace and I do not miss it at all. There is no need for on here. The mess of a wood burning totally not what we want. Here on the Peninsula there is no natural gas, only propane...not a fan. We LOVE our fireplaceless home.

I live on the Olympic Peninsula as well, and the last few days have been cold. It’s 29 degrees right now. Last Saturday our fan on the propane furnace died. This fan works with both the furnace and the heat pump. WE HAVE NO HEAT. When we built we installed a wood fireplace in the living room, propane fireplace in the kitchen and master bedroom. These 3 fireplaces have kept my home at 71 degrees. The fan motor came today and is in the progress of being installed. Hallelujah I was getting tired of getting up every two hours to feed the wood fireplace at night. But darn I love all three fireplaces, so glad we had them.

I grew up with wood burning fireplaces (lose more heat than you get, and are messy), and lived in a condo with another condo on each side and a 2-car garage on the north side, so didn't need additional heat with no fireplace for years, and it didn't hurt resale.

When we built our house, we put a 2-sided gas fireplace between the kitchen eating area and the living room, and also put a wood stove in the center of the lower level walkout. These are primarily for backup when the power goes out due to a bad storm (cold winters, cool/cold fall and spring and windy days dumping branches on the main power lines.

We have a partial house generator, but it's a lot cheaper to burn logs or use the gas fireplace, which can be started using the generator (which is NOT connected to the geothermal furnace), if the power is out for several hours or days. And if the whole grid goes down again, like it did a few years ago, we are prepared (unless the gravity-flow gas from somewhere in Michigan to the gas line to the gas fireplace, which has its start switch connected to the generator, is out of commission).

We turn the heat down a little when we go to bed, so in the morning it's delightful to turn on the fireplace for the 45 minutes it takes to get cozy warm. And when it's cold and gray outside, I love reading in front of the gas fireplace, contemplating the flames, and dozing off.

If you do decide to install a gas fireplace after you move in, hopefully there is a wall that will allow you to put in a 2-way fireplace which is MUCH more energy efficient than having it on an outside wall. Be sure you size it right, or you won't be able to keep it on very long. We turn ours on 3 or 4 times a day when it's really cold, just to take the edge off due to our lower temperature settings.

The wood stove is messy, and we've mainly used it to burn the logs from the trees we cut down on our lot when building.

Anne

Our house did not have a fireplace when we bought it. We added one and we use it constantly. We love it. We would have trouble buying a house if we could not add a fireplace.

In a cold climate I'd have to put a wood stove insert in any fireplace, and would add a woodstove to any house without one. I probably wouldn't buy a house with no good place to put one though.

I live in Los Angeles - no need for a fireplace here, and I made sure that the house we bought did NOT have one. Chimneys can fall over in earthquakes and therefore raise the cost of home insurance. Plus it is never cold here, and they take up too much space, which is at a premium here. The price of houses in my neighborhood is $750/sq ft (lower than some other L.A. neighborhoods), and so we could only afford so many square feet of space. They are also a decorating nightmare, at least for me. I had one in San Francisco, but it is much colder there.

I responded a while back regarding not getting a new fireplace in my new home since I find gas fireplaces unappealing (wood burning not allowed in new builds in my state.) Well, I couldn't be happier with my decision since I had this done recently - added a shiplap covered bump-out for the TV and new 60 inch electric fireplace plus added cabinets to both sides with floating shelves above. The fireplace does provide heat if needed but I just installed it for the ambience, not to heat.