<p>We are in the process of buying a small 1100 sqft house in California which requires a lot of updates, basically, the master bath has to be updated, repave the drive way and the wood burning fire place.</p>
<p>The fire place is the main concern, thus the subject matter. The brick chimmney has a lot of cracks due to earth quakes, most likley needs to be taken down to be rebuilt, inside, the fire place needs to be updated as well. It is a pretty big expense. The house is appealing because the price is right and it is a bank owned proepty. There is no room for repair costs negotiation.</p>
<p>There are three options for the fire place:
Rebuild as a wood burning fire place with a brick chimmney. This option probably costs the most and some meighbors have done that.
Rebuild as a gas burning fire place. I am not sure it will cost lot less, but the code requires less workmanship, so thought it will cost less.
Eliminated the fire place and wall it over, inside and out, of course I have to rebuild the roof line, which is a pain.</p>
<p>In CA. I think wood burning fire place is on the way out, due to the pollutions and damages to the green environment. During my 12 years of staying in the state, I have not burn any thing in the fire place, it became a decoration.</p>
<p>We are thinking of the resale value of the house on the fire place issue. Let me remind you that the house is small and the living room where the fire place is located is on the small side as well.</p>
<p>We live in VT and love our gas fireplaces. They take the chill off when we keep our thermostat low. We have one in living room and one in master bedroom. I think they will be assets for resale, but mainly, we like to use them now. They are also beautiful.</p>
<p>I would choose door number 4. A fireplace is an aesthetic feature in my house. Looks beautiful, but we never use it. So I would only do what is necessary for it to LOOK nice.</p>
<p>^^^What Flyme said! Especially depending on what part of CA you are in. Turn it into a visual fireplace. You can put something decorative in there or candles. Just make sure if you sell that buyers know it is not it working condition.</p>
<p>I have a gas direct vent unit. I rarely use it, because I pay a fortune to heat with LP now and it’s more inefficient than the furnace…but I sure do like looking at it and the hearth and the antique oak mantel/surround.</p>
<p>Fireplaces are a plus when listing a house. You could also do nothing as one poster said, and just let potential buyers know it needs work before it can have things burned in it. Let them choose whether to switch it to gas or whatever.</p>
<p>I would say #2. We had a gas fireplace in Southern California. I love a fireplace and I’ve had 3 homes with wood burning fireplaces and one with gas. Initally, I was disappointed the fireplace in CA was gas and not wood burning, but I used it more than the wood burning by far because of ease. I think it’s a plus.</p>
<p>I agree fireplaces are on way out. We don’t have one many of our friends do not. I like them- but I like stoves just as well & I have enough beautiful things & features in my house that we don’t miss it.</p>
<p>A gas fireplace that is sealed and has fans can actually efficiently heat a small room.</p>
<p>Having said that…we have a gas fireplace logset in our family room, and we love it. It is direct vent…not really there for the heat. It’s nice to have for those times when a fire is nice (Christmas morning), and it is also a beautifully adorned focal point of the room in our case. The wall would be mighty bare without it.</p>
<p>I do not agree that fireplaces are “on the way out”. I think WOOD BURNING fireplaces might be…but not the gas ones.</p>
<p>We recently had this discussion with a realtor. We did some major renovations to our house and had to take the fireplace completely out. Actually, it was in the living room, which we never used and we converted the room into a master bedroom. I called a realtor we have used before (she is the #1 realtor in our area) and asked her. Her response was she had never had a potential buyer walk away from a house they otherwise liked because there was no fireplace. We live in SC, where the opportunity to use a fireplace is limited to a few months a year.</p>
<p>We actually plan to add back a gas fireplace when we do the second phase of our renovations but it’s not really something I miss.</p>
<p>I love love love love love my fireplaces. When we redid our house I added to fireplaces. 1 of them is a very small 1 in my office. It lets me shut the door to my office, crank it up, and heat my office only up to about 80 degrees. Not wasting electric for the rest of the house. I would put that in again in the new york minute. We also put 1 in our bedroom. I love the mantle and a look , but honestly do not use it much. If it is very cold we may turn it on to warm up the bedroom. The third 1 is in the family room. It is a gas insert in a stone fireplace. It can be converted back to wood if somebody wanted to in the future. </p>
<p>I thought the fire codes would be different from wood burning and gas fired, at least in Ca. To convert from one to the other requires to change the entire chimmeny system. I could be wrong, though.</p>
<p>In our area, a fireplace is always a positive feature and buyers would be surprised if there wasn’t one. Gas fireplaces are much more popular than wood-burning. We three in our house and enjoy them very much. We have one in our second home in SC, too, so it’s not just in northern climes where they’re popular. When we bought that house, ever home we looked at had at least one FP, all gas.</p>
<p>Even in CA people love their fireplaces. We have a wood brning one that was piped with gas before we bought the house. We love just turning on the gas and starting our “fire with fake logs” right up!
But…not sure how close you are to a fault line…earthquakes do damage to chimneys. We had a whole chimney replaced at another house after a swarm of quakes caused cracking and it was discover the fireplaces were built without re-bar for support. Thank goodness the contractor who built them was still in business…so the entire neighborhood got new fireplaces after 20 years! The danger of yours falling down and harming someone should be addressed.
If you plan on re-selling this house anytime soon…you can count on the next buyers having the same concern you do. So bottom line…do something that makes it structurally sound (even if not functional) or get rid of it.</p>