Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

It's not the default choice here the way it might be in a more rural part of northeastern Pennsylvania—most Clarks Summit homes heat with natural gas, and the borough's smaller lots make firewood storage genuinely inconvenient for a lot of properties. But it's not impossible or unusual either. Homeowners with an existing masonry fireplace, a detached garage with room for a woodshed, or a property near the edge of town with more land often find a wood insert or stove makes sense—particularly as backup heat for the ice storms that hit this part of Lackawanna County every few winters and can knock out PPL Electric service for days.

Because wood heat is less common in this immediate area, pricing isn't as tightly tracked locally as it is in parts of Pennsylvania where wood is a primary fuel—but based on comparable installs across the Lackawanna Valley, expect somewhere in the $4,000 to $8,500 range for a freestanding stove or insert, including a hearth pad, Class A chimney components or a stainless liner, and labor. Homes without an existing masonry fireplace or chimney chase will run toward the higher end once new venting has to be built from scratch.

Most homes in the borough are older single-family houses in the 1,500 to 2,800 square foot range, which typically call for a small-to-medium stove rated for 1,000-2,000 square feet—especially if you're using it as supplemental or backup heat rather than the sole heat source, which is how most local installs are used. If you're heating a converted garage, sunroom, or a smaller secondary living space, a compact stove in the under-1,000-square-foot class is usually plenty. A local dealer can size this precisely based on your insulation and ceiling height during an in-home visit.

Given how many homes in Clarks Summit's older neighborhoods—particularly around the historic downtown and the Victorian-era streets near the borough center—already have a working masonry fireplace, an insert is often the more practical route. It reuses the chimney you already have, seals up the drafty open firebox, and turns a decorative fireplace into a real heat source. If your home doesn't have an existing fireplace, a freestanding stove with new Class A chimney pipe is the more common path, though it requires more construction work to get the venting through the roof.

Yes. New wood-burning appliance installations require a building permit, which you'll pull through your local municipal building department—Clarks Summit Borough or South Abington Township, depending on which side of the line your address falls. Any stove sold new also needs to meet current EPA emissions standards. Most hearth dealers who work in this part of Lackawanna County will handle the permit paperwork and schedule the inspection as part of the installation, so you're not coordinating it yourself.

There's no Forest Service or state cutting-permit office serving the immediate borough the way there is farther north in the Pinchot or Loyalsock state forests, so most Clarks Summit homeowners buy seasoned cordwood rather than cut their own. Local tree services and firewood dealers throughout Lackawanna County typically sell oak, hickory, maple, and cherry—all of which grow in the ridges surrounding town—for somewhere around $250 to $325 a cord delivered and stacked. Oak and hickory are the better choice for a long, hot overnight burn; cherry and maple burn a bit faster but split and season more easily.

Once a year, ideally in late summer before burning season starts, per CSIA guidelines. This matters even more for occasional-use installs—which describes a lot of Clarks Summit wood stoves used mainly as backup heat—because infrequent burning can let creosote and moisture build up in ways a daily-use stove wouldn't. If you're only firing up the stove during a winter power outage, don't assume that means less wear on the chimney; get it checked every year regardless of how many cords you actually burned.

Neither fuel is especially common here—both wood and pellet stoves are niche choices in a borough built around gas and electric heat—but the two solve different problems. A wood stove will run with zero electricity, which is the real draw for Clarks Summit homeowners thinking about the ice storms that periodically knock out PPL Electric service; you can keep a fire going with cordwood alone. A pellet stove needs power to run its auger and blower, so it goes dark in the same outage a wood stove would ride out, though it's more convenient day to day and burns cleaner. If backup heat during an outage is the actual goal, wood is the more reliable pick for this area.

Since storage space is often the limiting factor here rather than climate, look for a stove with a smaller footprint and efficient burn times so you're not stockpiling multiple cords. EPA-certified catalytic stoves from brands like Blaze King or Woodstock Soapstone hold a fire 10+ hours on a modest load, which suits a household burning wood a few times a week rather than around the clock. Ask a local dealer about clearance requirements too—a smaller stove often means more flexibility fitting it into an existing fireplace opening or a tighter room in an older Clarks Summit house.

An insert is a fireplace that slides into a pre-existing wood-burning fireplace—if you don't have one, there's nothing to insert it into. A zero-clearance fireplace is built into a framed wall, which makes it the answer for remodels and new construction. Simple test: existing masonry fireplace means insert; blank or framed wall means zero-clearance.

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.

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.

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.