Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

It's an option, just not a common one. Unlike a lot of Upper Midwest towns where wood stoves are a heating staple, North St. Paul's small residential lots and near-universal natural gas access from Northern States Power (Xcel Energy) mean most homeowners never consider it. That said, a modern EPA-certified wood stove or insert is still installable in a lot of homes here—older houses with existing masonry chimneys and properties with more clearance from neighboring structures are the best candidates. If you're set on wood, expect your dealer search to take a little more legwork than it would in, say, Duluth or Bismarck, simply because fewer local installers specialize in it.

There isn't a deep local dataset for wood installs here the way there is for gas, since so few homes go this route—but a straightforward stove install into an existing chimney typically lands in the $3,000–$6,000 range regionally, while adding new Class A chimney pipe through a roof or wall can push a project to $7,000–$9,000. Because specialty wood installers are thinner on the ground in the immediate metro compared to gas technicians, get quotes from two dealers rather than one; pricing can vary more here than it does for a commodity gas insert install.

Oak, maple, birch, and aspen are the four species you'll most commonly find from firewood suppliers serving the Twin Cities. Oak and maple are dense hardwoods that burn long and hot—good choices if you're running a stove for actual heat rather than ambiance. Birch lights easily and burns bright but faster than oak. Aspen is the lightest of the four and burns fast and cool, better suited to shoulder-season fires than the coldest nights of January. Most suppliers sell seasoned, split cordwood by the face cord or full cord, delivered.

Yes. New wood-burning appliance installations require a building permit through the City of North St. Paul, and the unit itself needs to meet current EPA emissions standards. Because lots here tend to be smaller than in more rural parts of Ramsey County, clearance-to-combustibles requirements are often the thing that determines whether a wood stove can go in a given room at all—this is worth confirming with a local dealer before you fall in love with a particular model.

Sometimes, but it depends on the room. Code requires specific clearances between a wood stove and combustible walls, furniture, and framing, and in a lot of North St. Paul's older, more compact floor plans, that rules out an interior wall placement. A hearth pad extension, heat shields, or relocating the stove to an exterior wall with a straight chimney run can often solve the problem—a local installer will need to walk your specific room to confirm what's feasible before you commit to a purchase.

For most homes here, gas wins on convenience and infrastructure—Northern States Power's gas network reaches nearly every neighborhood, install costs are lower on average, and there's no wood handling or ash cleanup. Wood's real advantage is that it keeps working when the power goes out, since most gas fireplaces with electronic ignition need at least a battery backup, and older gas furnaces need electricity to run their blowers. If you've been through a Twin Cities ice storm and lost heat for a few days, that's the scenario where a wood stove earns its keep. For everyday heating in this city, though, gas is genuinely the more practical choice for the large majority of homeowners.

It can be one of the best backup options available, precisely because it doesn't rely on the grid. With average winter lows around 8°F and stretches of single-digit or below-zero temperatures most winters, a properly sized wood stove can keep a home's main living area livable through a multi-day outage in a way a gas furnace with an electric blower can't. If backup heat is your primary reason for considering wood, talk to a local dealer about a smaller, simpler non-catalytic stove—easier to operate under stress and less finicky than a high-end catalytic unit if you're not burning it daily.

There's no public cutting-permit land inside city limits, so firewood here comes from private suppliers rather than Forest Service permits—several tree services and firewood delivery businesses serve Ramsey County and the broader Twin Cities metro, typically selling seasoned oak, maple, birch, or aspen by the face cord or full cord with delivery included. Expect to pay more per cord for oak and maple than for aspen, reflecting burn time and heat output. Buying a season ahead and letting wood dry through summer will noticeably improve how clean and efficient your stove burns.

For a household that isn't burning wood as primary heat, a mid-size, non-catalytic EPA-certified stove from a brand like Pacific Energy or Lopi is usually the easier fit—simpler to operate, less maintenance than a catalytic unit, and forgiving if it sits unused for weeks between cold snaps or outages. If you do want maximum burn time for extended outages, a catalytic stove from Blaze King can hold a fire far longer on a single load, but it comes with more of a learning curve. A local dealer can walk you through both given your specific room and how often you actually expect to use it.

Open fireplaces suck—literally. As the fire burns, it consumes air your furnace already paid to heat and pulls it out through the chimney, so the house is actually colder after the fire goes out than before you lit it. An insert fixes this: it seals the chimney, puts fixed glass across the front, and turns that hole in your house into a real heat source.

On many stoves, yes—a new fire needs extra air, and cracking the door a couple inches is how most stoves get it. But some modern stoves offer an automatic startup air system: engage it when you light, and timed air jets feed the fire for the first 20 minutes with the door fully shut, then close automatically. It's mechanical—like an egg timer, no electricity—and it means you can load it, light it, and walk away.

If you're putting a fire in your house on purpose, it's best to work with an expert. Unless you're genuinely experienced in framing, gas line, vent pipe, and the national code on clearances to combustibles, have a professional do it—and ideally the same company that sells you the fireplace, so warranty, service, and liability all live under one roof.

On average, a fireplace adds back to the home about the same amount you spent installing it. Add the monthly savings from heating the rooms you actually use instead of the whole house—often hundreds of dollars a year—and the value case is strong before you even count what a fire does for how your family uses the room.