Fireplace installation in McAllen TX - a fireplace built for how you use it

Yes, a factory-built fireplace usually costs less than a masonry one. These low-mass units are made before they reach your house, and they're the lower-cost choice most new homes across the country use. A masonry fireplace is built on site by a mason from brick or stone, so it takes more labor and material, and what you get is a fireplace made for that one room.

Not much. Most traditional open fireplaces lose more than 90 percent of the fire's heat up the chimney, and a lot of the room's warm air goes with it. An open fireplace is mostly for the look, with any warmth as a bonus, so if heat matters more to you, tell me early because it changes which option we look at.

Start by finding out whether your fireplace is masonry or factory-built, because that decides what kind of insert can go in. An insert fits inside the firebox of an existing masonry or metal fireplace, but a factory-built fireplace, the kind called zero-clearance, needs an insert designed and tested for that particular unit. In a masonry chimney, the flue liner, the chimney's inner lining, also has to be installed correctly, and I'll look at it when I come out.

Across the US, putting in a gas insert or a new zero-clearance gas fireplace usually runs about $3,500 to $16,500 per job. That's a national range, so where your job lands depends on the unit, the finish around it, whether a gas line has to be run and what shape the existing fireplace is in. I'll give you a number for your house after I've seen it.

Check with the city before work starts, because McAllen requires a permit to build, expand or modify a building, and its list of work that needs no permit names things like painting and tiling, not fireplaces. The city's Building Permits and Inspections Department is the office to ask, and some home projects also need separate permits for wiring, plumbing or heating and air work, which the city says has to be done by state-licensed contractors. When a permit's needed, we take care of the paperwork with the city and set up the inspections.

Decorative logs are the simplest route, since electric, natural gas or propane logs can go into a fireplace you already have, though they aren't made to put out much heat. Some gas logs need no outside vent, and federal EPA guidance doesn't back those models because of indoor air quality, so it's worth knowing which kind you're buying. If yours runs on propane, Texas requires the company running the LPG piping and hooking up certain appliances to be licensed by the Railroad Commission of Texas.