Heat that holds through a White Mountains winter.

It depends on your home and how you use it. Wood is the traditional backbone here—with maple, birch, beech, and oak all available locally and firewood cutting permits through the White Mountain National Forest, a well-sized wood stove keeps fuel costs down and provides heat during the ice-storm power outages this region sees most winters. Gas is the convenience choice, though it's worth knowing that natural gas mains don't reach most of Carroll County's towns—'gas fireplace' here almost always means propane, delivered and stored in a tank, which still gives you instant heat and thermostat control without hauling wood. Pellet splits the difference: less labor than cordwood, and regional pellet brands like Lignetics, New England Wood Pellet, and Maine Woods Pellet Co. keep supply local. Electric works well as supplemental heat in bedrooms, guest rooms, or the many seasonal camps around Winnipesaukee, but it's not a realistic primary heat source once temperatures drop into the single digits. Many full-time Carroll County households run wood or pellet as primary heat with propane or electric backup in secondary rooms.

In most cases, yes—but the permit is issued by your town, not the county. New Hampshire doesn't run a unified county building department, so a wood stove or insert installed in Conway goes through the Conway building office, while the same install in Wolfeboro or Tamworth goes through that town's office. Across the county you can generally expect a permit requirement for wood stoves, wood inserts, gas or propane fireplaces, gas inserts, gas stoves, and pellet stoves, and propane installations typically also need a licensed gas-fitter for the line and tank connection. Electric fireplaces usually skip the permit unless it's a built-in unit requiring a new circuit. Most local hearth retailers in North Conway and Wolfeboro handle the town permitting as part of the installation, so you're not filing paperwork yourself.

Yes—this is one of the more common ways Carroll County households stock a woodpile. The White Mountain National Forest issues personal-use firewood cutting permits covering large portions of the county's timberland, and standing dead maple, birch, beech, and oak are all fair game under most permits. Self-cut wood needs at least six months to a year of seasoning before it burns clean, so most people cut in late winter or spring for the following heating season. If you'd rather not cut your own, local firewood suppliers deliver seasoned cordwood by the truckload, typically priced by the face cord—worth confirming moisture content before you stack it, since wet wood is the number one cause of poor stove performance and creosote buildup.

Several of the larger dealers along the North Conway retail strip and in Wolfeboro carry wood, gas (propane), pellet, and electric units side by side, which is useful if you're still deciding between fuels and want to see working displays. Smaller shops serving the outlying towns—Tamworth, Ossipee, Madison—tend to focus more narrowly, often specializing in wood and pellet with propane fireplaces available through special order. If a dealer only lists as a firewood or pellet supplier rather than a hearth retailer, they're a fuel source, not an installer—you'll still need a separate dealer to handle the stove or insert itself. Ask directly which fuels a given shop installs and services regularly, since 'carries' and 'installs and services' aren't always the same thing.

A large share of homes around Winnipesaukee, in Jackson, and in the notch towns are seasonal or weekend properties, and technicians serving Carroll County are used to working around that schedule—closing-season chimney sweeps in the fall, spring startup checks on propane systems before the first weekend guests arrive, and pellet stove cleanings scheduled around when the owner is actually on-site. If your property sits empty for stretches, it's worth having a technician do a pre-season inspection rather than discovering a cracked gasket or a clogged burn pot on the first cold weekend of the season. Booking early—August or September—gets you ahead of the rush that hits once the leaf-peeping and ski crowds arrive and every technician in the county is booked solid.

Ranges vary by fuel and by how much venting or gas-line work is involved. Wood stove or insert installation: roughly $4,500–$9,500 for a typical retrofit into an existing chimney, higher if new construction requires a full masonry or Class A chimney system. Propane fireplace, insert, or stove: roughly $4,500–$11,500, with tank placement and line runs pushing costs toward the higher end for homes without existing propane service. Pellet stove or insert: roughly $4,000–$7,500 for most installs. Electric fireplace: $200–$3,000 for the unit itself, plus $400–$1,200 in labor for anything beyond a plug-and-play wall unit. Rural and notch-area installs sometimes run a bit higher due to travel time and site access—your local dealer can give you an exact number once they've seen the space.

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.

It's a visit where a hearth professional measures your space, confirms the model you picked actually works in your home, and walks the specs—framing, gas line, venting, finish work—before anything is ordered. Some details you just can't know until you see the house. Never make a down payment without one; it's the single most-skipped step that burns buyers.

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.

Match the fuel to your life, not the other way around. Wood: lowest fuel cost and total power-outage independence, but you're hauling and stacking. Gas: press a button, set a thermostat, no maintenance to speak of. Pellet: wood economics with automatic feeding, in exchange for weekly cleaning and a need for electricity. Electric: plugs in anywhere with honest supplemental heat. Nobody regrets the fuel that fits how they actually live.