Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

It depends on the home. Glenolden's twins and rowhomes typically have narrow side yards, shared walls, and little room for a full cord-and-a-half of stacked, seasoned firewood outdoors. A freestanding stove needs code-required clearances to combustibles and enough covered storage nearby to keep wood dry, which is tight on many lots here. A wood-burning insert into an existing masonry fireplace is usually the more realistic fit—it uses the chimney you already have, doesn't add floor footprint, and works well as backup or supplemental heat rather than a primary system. A local dealer can walk your specific lot and chimney before you commit to either option.

For a Delaware County home like the ones typical in Glenolden, a wood-burning insert into an existing masonry fireplace generally runs $4,000 to $7,500, including a stainless steel chimney liner, surround, and labor. A freestanding stove with new Class A chimney pipe through an exterior wall or roof tends to run higher, often $6,500 to $9,000, since there's more construction work involved on an older home. Get a firm quote from a local installer after they've seen your existing chimney or the space where a new one would go—masonry condition varies a lot house to house on these older blocks.

Yes. Pennsylvania's Uniform Construction Code applies statewide, and Glenolden Borough's code enforcement office handles the building permit for a new solid-fuel appliance installation, including inspection of clearances, hearth protection, and venting. The stove or insert itself needs to meet current EPA 2020 NSPS emissions standards—nearly every unit sold by a certified hearth dealer today already does. Most local installers pull the permit as part of the job, so you're not usually coordinating with the borough directly.

Oak, hickory, maple, and cherry are the hardwoods most commonly available from firewood dealers serving Delaware County, and they're all good choices. Oak and hickory burn dense and hot with a long coal bed, which is useful if you're running a stove overnight for backup heat. Cherry and maple season a bit faster and burn a little cleaner, making them a good option if you're buying wood that hasn't had a full year to dry. Whatever species you choose, look for moisture content under 20 percent—wet wood is the main cause of poor draft and creosote buildup in a chimney.

Since Delaware County doesn't have national forest or state land with cutting permits nearby, firewood here comes from local tree services, landscaping companies, and dedicated firewood dealers who deliver throughout the Philadelphia suburbs. Expect to pay roughly $275 to $375 per full cord for seasoned hardwood—oak and hickory mixes are common—with a premium for kiln-dried or already-split wood delivered in smaller quantities. Ask any supplier when the wood was cut; properly seasoned firewood needs 6 to 12 months of dry storage before it burns well.

Glenolden doesn't carry the non-attainment or winter inversion issues you see in some western valley towns, so there aren't burn bans or curtailment days to plan around here. That said, homes sit close together on these blocks, and smoke from an older, uncertified stove can bother neighbors quickly in a tight rowhome setting. Choosing an EPA 2020 NSPS-certified stove or insert burns significantly cleaner and is worth it for that reason alone, even without a regulatory requirement pushing you there.

For most Glenolden houses, gas is the practical choice—PECO's gas lines are already in the street, installation is simpler, and there's no wood storage or ash cleanup to deal with. Wood's real advantage is that it works without electricity or gas service, which matters if you want a genuine backup heat source for a winter storm outage. A lot of Glenolden homeowners end up with both: a gas furnace or gas fireplace for daily comfort, and a wood insert or small stove in an existing fireplace as a resilience play for the handful of nights a year when the power or gas is out.

The CSIA recommends an annual inspection for any wood-burning appliance, and it matters even more in a borough like Glenolden where many homes have original masonry chimneys from the early-to-mid 1900s. Mortar joints and flue tiles degrade with age, and a liner is often needed before a new insert or stove can be safely installed. Plan on a Level 1 inspection and sweep each year, ideally in late summer or early fall before you start burning for the season.

Yes, and it's one of the more common wood projects in Glenolden's older twins and rowhomes. Most original masonry fireplaces here were built for looks and lose the vast majority of their heat up the chimney. An insert seals that opening and vents through a new stainless steel liner run inside your existing flue, turning an inefficient open fireplace into a real heat source—often improving efficiency from around 10 percent to 60-70 percent or more. It's a good option if you already have a fireplace and want meaningful backup heat without changing the exterior of the house.

New wood stoves are 70%+ efficient, so far less heat goes up the flue—which also means less draft to get a fire established. The rule: build a genuinely hot fire for about 45 minutes before you choke it down. Skip that and you get smoke in the room, creosote in the chimney, and a fire that never takes off. Most performance complaints trace straight back to this.

Four numbers tell you what fits: the front width, the front height, the back width, and the overall depth of your existing fireplace opening. Grab a tape measure, jot those down, and snap a photo of the wall—those two things do more to move your project forward than anything else you can do today.

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.

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.