Find your fireplace across Sunbury.

All four fuels see genuine use in Sunbury, and which one fits best often comes down to where you sit along the river. Wood is the backbone fuel in most of the region—sugar maple and yellow birch split and dried a season ahead burn hot and long, and a lot of households still source it through New Brunswick Natural Resources (DNRED) district offices on Crown land rather than buying it retail. Gas is a strong option where Liberty Utilities service reaches, mainly around Oromocto and the Fredericton Junction corridor; homes further out toward Burton or Lakeville Corner more often run bottled propane. Pellet stoves have a real following here too, with Groupe Savoie and Shaw Resources both sold through regional dealers—useful if you want wood-heat convenience without splitting and stacking. Electric fireplaces are supplemental almost everywhere; through a winter that regularly sits near -15°C overnight, they're not built to carry a house alone, but they're a good fit for a bedroom, basement, or a home already heated by wood or gas.

Yes, in almost every case. New installations go through your municipal building department, and the work has to meet the CSA B365 installation code regardless of whether you're putting in a wood stove, gas insert, or pellet appliance. Wood installations specifically should plan on a WETT inspection once the unit is in—most home insurers in New Brunswick either require one outright or ask for it at renewal if they know you're burning wood. Gas installations need a licensed gas fitter for the line connection in addition to the building permit. Electric fireplaces are usually the exception; a plug-in unit typically doesn't need a permit at all, though a hardwired built-in with a new circuit might. Most of the retailers we help homeowners find handle the permit paperwork and the WETT inspection as part of the job, so it's rarely something you're chasing down yourself.

Firewood culture runs deep here, and a lot of households cut their own through New Brunswick Natural Resources (DNRED) district offices, which issue permits for Crown land harvesting. Sugar maple, yellow birch, and red maple are the hardwoods most people target because they split cleanly and hold a fire; white spruce shows up too but burns faster and cooler, so it suits shoulder-season fires better than a January cold snap. There's no province-wide burning restriction in New Brunswick the way some other provinces regulate winter air quality, but that doesn't change what your local building department or insurer expects at installation—any wood stove or insert still needs to meet current emissions standards and pass a WETT inspection. If you're planning to burn a lot of self-cut wood, tell your dealer up front; they'll size the firebox and flue for the species and moisture content you're actually going to feed it.

Most retailers serving this region carry at least two fuel types rather than specializing in just one, which fits how households here actually heat—wood or pellet as the primary source with a gas or electric unit somewhere else in the house. A multi-fuel dealer is useful if you're still deciding, since you can compare working wood, gas, and pellet displays side by side and talk through what actually makes sense for your address, whether that's inside the Liberty Utilities gas footprint around Oromocto or out toward Burton where propane and wood do most of the work. We'll help you find the retailer whose fuel lineup and service area genuinely fit your project, not whichever dealer happens to be biggest.

Installation crews and service techs are concentrated around Oromocto but regularly travel out to Fredericton Junction, Burton, Lakeville Corner, and the smaller communities along the river. Expect a modest trip fee for the farthest calls, and expect booking to tighten up once the region settles into its cold stretch—overnight lows near -15°C tend to arrive by December and stick around into March. Getting your annual WETT inspection or gas service done in September or October, before the first hard frost, is the easiest way to avoid a multi-week wait once everyone else remembers they need the same thing.

Costs vary by fuel and by how much venting or gas-line work the job needs. Wood stove or insert installations typically run $4,500-$9,000 CAD, with a full new chimney pushing toward $13,000-$14,000 for new construction. Gas fireplaces, inserts, and stoves run roughly $4,500-$11,000 depending on whether you're extending a gas line from the Liberty Utilities main or converting an existing hearth. Pellet stove or insert installs generally land at $4,500-$7,500. Electric fireplaces are the outlier—$200-$3,000 for the unit itself, plus $400-$1,200 in labour for anything beyond a simple plug-in placement. The region and fuel pages above break these numbers down further with local retailer pricing.

Wrong question—and the industry's favorite way to confuse you. More BTUs isn't better if the fireplace cooks you out of the room you spent thousands to enjoy. Think in terms you can verify: how many square feet the unit heats, whether it's primary or backup heat, and whether you want it running overnight. Those three answers size a fireplace correctly every time.

In my own home, the room with the fireplace has never been the same—it became the social hub. Game nights, holidays, date nights after the kids are down: the fire is where the house gathers. There's a reason people in this industry joke that we're really in the romance and entertainment business. You won't wonder whether you'll use it; you'll wonder how the room worked before.

Do two things today: snap a photo of the wall or fireplace you want to transform, and take a tape measure to the space—width, height, depth. Those two artifacts answer most of a hearth professional's first questions. Then settle fuel (wood, gas, pellet, or electric) and set a realistic budget: $3,900–$5,500 covers fireplace, vent, and basic install for most homes.

For an average home—covering the fireplace, the vent pipe, and basic installation—a budget between $3,900 and $5,500 gives you a lot of options across wood, gas, and pellet. By the time you add finish work, gas line, and electrical, the average complete installation lands between $5,000 and $12,000 all-in. In a remodel or new build, a good rule is to put about 2.5% of the total project cost toward the fireplace.