Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

No, not really—and we don't want to oversell it. Natural gas from Xcel Energy and electric service from Northern States Power Co. - Minnesota cover the overwhelming majority of homes in South St. Paul, and that's unlikely to change. Wood stoves and inserts still get installed here, but usually as a secondary heat source or in older homes near the river bluffs with an existing chimney, not as a family's primary heating plan. If you're set on wood heat, a local dealer can tell you honestly whether your home and lot are a good candidate.

Costs vary more here than in places where wood is the norm, because so much depends on whether you have an existing masonry chimney to work with. Retrofitting a wood insert into an existing fireplace is usually the more affordable path; installing a freestanding stove with new Class A chimney pipe through a roof or wall costs more once framing, flashing, and hearth pad work are added in. Because installs are less standardized here than in cold-climate wood country, get a firm, in-home quote from a local dealer rather than relying on a national average.

Yes. Any new wood-burning appliance install requires a building permit through the City of South St. Paul's building inspections office (or Dakota County, depending on your address), and the stove needs to meet current EPA 2020 NSPS emissions standards. Most local dealers handle the permit application as part of the installation, so this rarely falls on the homeowner directly—but confirm it's included before you sign a contract.

There's no national forest or large public land tract nearby offering cutting permits the way there is in northern Minnesota, so firewood here comes from commercial dealers rather than self-cut permits. Oak, maple, birch, and aspen are the species you'll most commonly find from Twin Cities-area firewood suppliers, typically sold and delivered by the cord. Oak and maple burn longer and hotter for overnight use; birch and aspen split easier and are good for quick, hot fires.

Even though wood is a secondary heat source for most South St. Paul homes, the climate here is genuinely cold—a long, demanding heating season and winter lows that regularly sit near 9°F. If you want a stove capable of real heat output during a cold snap or power outage, look at mid-to-large non-catalytic or catalytic stoves from brands like Pacific Energy, Lopi, or Blaze King rather than a small decorative unit. A local dealer can size it correctly to your room and existing chimney setup.

If you're in one of South St. Paul's older homes—plenty of the bungalows and post-war houses near the river bluffs have an original masonry fireplace—a wood insert is usually the simpler, less invasive option since it uses the chimney you already have. If you don't have an existing fireplace, a freestanding stove with new Class A pipe is the alternative, though it involves more construction work in a home that wasn't originally built with one in mind.

The Chimney Safety Institute of America recommends an annual inspection for any wood-burning appliance, and that holds true even for the occasional-use setups common in South St. Paul. Because wood heat here is often supplemental rather than run daily all winter, homeowners sometimes skip this—but that's backwards: less frequent use means creosote and moisture can sit longer between burns, and an older masonry chimney on a river-bluff home deserves at least a yearly look before burning season.

For most homes here, gas is the practical primary choice—Xcel Energy's natural gas network is reliable and reaches nearly every property in the city, and a gas fireplace or furnace gives instant, consistent heat without wood handling. Electric heat, billed through Northern States Power Co. - Minnesota at roughly 17 cents per kWh, works fine as a supplemental option but costs more to run through a long, demanding winter heating season. Wood's real advantage is that it works without electricity—genuinely useful during an ice storm outage—which is the main reason South St. Paul homeowners choose it, not fuel cost or convenience.

It's one of the more common reasons homeowners here ask about wood stoves. South St. Paul doesn't lose power often, but when an ice storm or a severe thunderstorm does take out Xcel Energy service in January, a home heated entirely by a gas furnace with an electric blower or by electric baseboard can get cold fast. A wood stove—even a modest one—keeps burning with zero electricity and can hold a single room at a livable temperature through a multi-day outage. If that's your main motivation, say so when you talk to a local dealer; it changes which stove and venting setup makes sense.

An insert does two things: it seals the chimney completely, so you stop losing air you already paid to heat, and it radiates warmth into the room through the firebox and glass. Most add a heat-exchange fan that pulls cool room air underneath, wraps it around the hot firebox, and pushes it back out warm. Your home is more efficient before you've even lit the first fire.

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.

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.

Yes—by creating a comfort zone. A furnace heats every square foot of the house just to warm the one room you're in; a gas fireplace on low burns roughly a sixth of the gas a typical furnace does. Set the furnace around 55–60 degrees as a baseline, then heat the rooms your family actually uses. Families who heat this way commonly save $20–$60 a month.