Every fuel, matched to your corner of the Peterborough Region.

All four fuels are genuinely common across the Peterborough Region, and the right pick depends more on your property than fashion. Wood remains a strong choice inland from the city—Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources permits on Crown land plus the region's dense sugar maple, red oak, white ash, and yellow birch bush mean a catalytic stove can hold a fire through a -13°C overnight with wood that's often available at a fraction of retail cost. Natural gas reaches most of the City of Peterborough core through Enbridge Gas, making a gas fireplace or insert the low-maintenance choice for in-town homes; rural properties out toward Douro-Dummer or Havelock-Belmont-Methuen typically run on propane instead. Pellet stoves have a solid following here too, with Lacwood and Energex both distributed regionally—useful if you want wood-heat economics without cutting and stacking. Electric fireplaces work well as a supplemental unit in a bedroom, basement, or sunroom, but with winters this long they're rarely anyone's only heat source.

Yes, in nearly every case. Any solid-fuel appliance—wood stove, insert, or factory-built fireplace—needs to be installed to the CSA B365 code, and permits go through your local municipal building department, whether that's the City of Peterborough or the townships of Selwyn, Douro-Dummer, Cavan Monaghan, or Otonabee-South Monaghan. Just as important for most homeowners: insurers commonly require a WETT inspection before they'll cover a wood-burning appliance, so budget for that even if your municipality's permit process is straightforward. Gas installs need a licensed gas fitter and a separate gas-line permit. Most retailers we match homeowners with handle the paperwork and schedule the WETT inspection as part of the project, so it's rarely something you're chasing down alone.

Some municipalities in the region have started requiring certified, low-emission appliances for any new construction or major renovation, on top of the CSA B365 rules that already apply to every install. Given how much hardwood gets burned across the region, this isn't really a burden in practice—certified wood stoves and inserts are the standard product on dealer floors now anyway, and they burn noticeably cleaner and more efficiently than an old smoke-dragon unit. If you're building new or doing a substantial addition, check with your municipal building department early so your appliance choice is locked in before drywall goes up.

Enbridge Gas mains reach the City of Peterborough and the more built-up parts of the region, which is why gas fireplaces and inserts are common in town. Once you're out past the urban edge—into Selwyn, Douro-Dummer, Otonabee-South Monaghan, or the more rural stretches toward the Kawartha Lakes—natural gas service usually isn't there, and propane fills the gap instead. Propane units install and operate almost identically to natural gas ones; the main difference is a tank on the property instead of a buried main. If you're not sure which side of the line your address falls on, that's one of the first things a local dealer will confirm before recommending a unit.

Most retailers across the Peterborough Region carry more than one fuel rather than specializing narrowly, which fits how homeowners here actually heat—wood or pellet doing the bulk of the work with a gas or electric unit somewhere else in the house for convenience. A multi-fuel dealer lets you compare a wood insert, a gas unit, and a pellet stove side by side and talk through what actually fits your chimney, your lot, and whether you're inside Enbridge's service area or running on propane. We match you with the dealer whose lineup and service area genuinely fits your project, not whichever showroom is closest to the highway.

Costs depend heavily on fuel and how much venting or gas-line work is involved. Wood stove or insert installs typically run $4,500–$9,500 CAD, with a full masonry chimney for new construction pushing toward $15,000 CAD. Gas fireplaces, inserts, and stoves generally land between $4,000–$10,000 CAD depending on how far the gas line has to travel. Pellet stove or insert installs run roughly $4,000–$7,000 CAD. Electric fireplaces are the outlier—$250–$3,000 CAD for the unit itself, plus $400–$1,200 CAD in labor 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.

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.

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.