Modern Eco-Friendly Fireplaces For Green Living

The bioethanol fireplace enables some pretty remarkable things for environmentally minded residents of northern latitudes. You can have a quietly burning bioethanol fire that produces no ash or smoke and requires no wood in the amount of space that's about the size of a coffee table, or inset into a wall like a standard fireplace. The by-product, instead of smoke, is a modest amount of CO2 and steam.

Smoke, Chimney, Ash and Hassle-free Green Fireplaces

We know you'll find an ethanol fireplace that's aesthetically pleasing to you and fits your home environment, so suffice it to say that this style of fireplace is highly versatile with respect to location in your home and design. We'll discuss the benefits of a bioethanol fireplace over a traditional fireplace.

What exactly is ethanol?

Biofuel is any fuel made by fermenting the sugars in plant materials, usually sugar, beets, and starch crops. The resulting product is an alcohol called ethanol that you probably recognize from the gas station. You may put it in your car or you may be ardently opposed to doing so. The fact is, it's an ideal source of energy for heating a home.

Ethanol is not a cheap form of energy, and as such, many people are skeptical of buying ethanol fireplaces or other items that use it. However, it doesn't take a crystal ball to see that a lot of creative energy is going into producing it more efficiently. In fact, even trees and grasses can now be made into ethanol, where formerly it was too difficult to do so. This vastly increases the possible production and will lead to lower prices. Likewise, as demand for cleaner energy increases, it's likely that more suppliers will crop up.

Benefits accrued to you as well as the ecosystem

As if a clean-burning fireplace weren't incentive enough to adopt ethanol use, consider the fact that there is no cleanup required, no flue to deal with, and no lugging around hunks of wood. We know, some people will get nostalgic and long for a trip outside in the snow to brush off the woodpile and find a nice one to pop in the fireplace. We'd wager, however, that most of them are looking for fewer things to worry about, and would likely admit that keeping a pile of wood is a hassle and keeping it dry is downright difficult.

When to use an ethanol fireplace

Remember, bio-ethanol fireplaces should be treated like most traditional fireplaces in that they are a supplementary supply of heat. Though they require no venting, they do require ventilation (don't use one in a closed, compact space) and cannot be left running all day. Ideally, they would be used to heat a room quickly and allow you to keep your furnace running at a lower temperature. Like we said, just like a traditional fireplace, only without all the hassle.