Find your fireplace across the Digby Region.

There's no single right answer, but the local pattern is clear: wood paired with a heat pump. Nova Scotia Power's rates are among the highest in the country, so a sugar maple or yellow birch stove doing the heavy lifting on cold nights, backed by a heat pump for shoulder seasons, is what most households here settle on. Gas fireplaces are popular for convenience and ambiance, though since mains gas doesn't reach this far from Halifax, that almost always means a propane unit rather than natural gas. Pellet stoves have a solid following too, helped by regional suppliers like Shaw Resources and Scotia Atlantic Biomass keeping fuel reasonably local. Electric fireplaces are common as a supplemental unit in a bedroom or den, but given the winter lows here, they're rarely asked to carry a home on their own.

For nearly every home in the Digby Region, it's propane. Heritage Gas's mains network serves limited corridors around greater Halifax and doesn't extend out to the Annapolis Basin, so a gas fireplace here is fed by a propane tank rather than a buried gas line. The good news is that doesn't limit your options much—propane fireplaces, inserts, and stoves are sized and vented the same way natural gas units are, and most manufacturer-authorized dealers stock units built to run on either fuel. What changes is your ongoing supply arrangement: you'll want a local propane delivery contract rather than a utility account.

Yes to both, in most cases. Installation permits go through your municipal building department, and the work needs to meet the CSA B365 installation code for wood-burning appliances. Separately, most home insurers in Nova Scotia require a WETT inspection before they'll cover a wood stove or insert—this applies whether you're putting a new unit into a Digby cottage or replacing an older stove in a Bear River farmhouse. A trusted local dealer typically arranges the WETT inspection and handles the permit paperwork as part of your project, so it's rarely something you're chasing down on your own.

A lot of local firewood is either self-cut under a Nova Scotia Natural Resources Crown Land permit or bought from a small local supplier who's already seasoned it. Sugar maple and yellow birch are the top choices here for a wood stove meant to hold overnight—dense, high heat output, and a long, even burn. Red oak burns similarly well once properly seasoned, usually needing a full year or two of drying time. Red spruce is more common as a lighter, faster-burning option for shoulder-season fires in September or April, when you want heat without loading the firebox full.

Costs shift depending on fuel and how much venting work is involved. Wood stove or insert installs typically run $4,000-$8,500 CAD, with a full new chimney system for older Digby-area homes pushing toward $12,000. Propane fireplaces, inserts, and stoves usually land between $4,000-$10,000, with tank setup and line work adding to the total if you're starting from scratch. Pellet stove or insert installs generally run $4,000-$7,000. Electric fireplaces are the low end—$200-$2,500 for the unit—plus modest labour if you need a dedicated circuit for a built-in model. Your local dealer will give you exact numbers once they know your home and chimney situation.

Late summer through early fall is the window to aim for. Service technicians covering the region travel a long stretch of Bay of Fundy shoreline—Digby to Weymouth to Bear River and back—so booking your annual chimney sweep, propane appliance check, or pellet stove cleaning before the first real cold snap in October keeps you ahead of the rush. Fundy storms in December and January can delay a return visit by several days if something goes wrong mid-winter, so getting your unit inspected and any parts on hand before the season starts is worth the small amount of planning.

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.

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.

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.