Keep Your Family Warm and Safe—No Matter What

Not really, and we'd rather tell you that upfront than sell you on something that doesn't fit. With a fairly mild, short winter heating season and winter lows averaging 30°F, most Wichita Falls homes rely on central gas or electric heat, and wood stoves are installed by a smaller group of homeowners—often on rural acreage without utility gas, in homes wanting a backup heat source, or simply for the ambiance of a real fire. If your goal is whole-home heat for a typical in-town house, gas or electric will almost always make more sense. If you're on the edge of town, off natural gas, or want a fire that works with the power out, wood is worth a real look.

Because wood installs are less common here than in colder states, there isn't as deep a local pricing history to draw from, but a typical freestanding wood stove with a new Class A chimney generally runs $4,000 to $8,000 in North Texas, and a wood insert into an existing masonry fireplace tends to land in a similar range depending on liner length and hearth work. Expect some installers to factor in a bit more for scheduling and travel, since fewer companies in the Wichita Falls area specialize in wood-burning venting compared to gas fireplace work.

Most Wichita Falls wood installs aren't heating an entire house—they're supplementing a central system or covering one room, a converted garage, or a rural cabin-style property. A small stove (rated for up to around 1,000 square feet) covers most of these requests comfortably. If you're on acreage without natural gas and want the stove to genuinely carry the home through a cold snap, a medium-sized stove and a real conversation with a local installer about your insulation and layout is worth the time—oversizing a stove for a mild climate like this one just means more smoldering, low-temperature burns and creosote buildup.

For most homes here, gas wins on convenience: instant heat, no ash or wood handling, and it pairs naturally with the natural gas and propane infrastructure already common in North Texas. Electric fireplaces are also a straightforward option through Oncor, AEP Texas North, or Southwest Rural Electric service territory for zone heat without any venting at all. Wood makes the most sense in the specific cases where gas or electric fall short—rural properties without utility gas, or anyone who wants heat that keeps working when the power doesn't.

Yes, and this is probably the single best argument for wood heat in Wichita Falls. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 knocked out power across much of North Texas, including areas served by Southwest Rural Electric Association, for days at a time. A wood stove or fireplace insert with a manual damper doesn't need electricity to produce heat, unlike a gas insert with an electric blower or a pellet stove that needs power to run its auger. For homeowners who remember that week, that's often the deciding factor even in a climate this mild.

Oak, pecan, and mesquite are the three species most readily available locally—the same hardwoods North Texans use for smoking brisket and ribs, sold seasoned by area tree services and ranches. Oak gives a long, steady burn and holds coals well overnight. Pecan is dense and burns hot with good coal retention, similar to oak. Mesquite burns fast and very hot, which makes it popular for cooking but means it needs to be mixed with a slower-burning species like oak if you're trying to hold a fire for hours in a stove.

Most new wood-burning installations require a building permit, whether through the City of Wichita Falls or Wichita County depending on where the property sits, and the work typically needs to meet current EPA emissions standards for the stove itself. The good news is that Wichita Falls has no air quality non-attainment designation and no seasonal burn curtailment periods to navigate, unlike wildfire-prone parts of the West—once your stove is installed and inspected, you're not restricted from using it on high-pollution days.

This is where the smaller local market actually matters: because wood-burning installs are less frequent in Wichita Falls than gas fireplace work, the pool of installers with real chimney and clearance experience is thinner, and some homeowners end up working with companies based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro, about 140 miles south, who are willing to travel for the job. Look for NFI or CSIA certification specifically for wood-burning appliances rather than a general handyman or HVAC contractor—improper clearances and venting are the leading cause of chimney fires, and that risk doesn't go away just because the climate is mild.

Both are niche choices here, but for different reasons. Pellet stoves from brands like Forest Energy or Lignetics burn cleaner and are easier to operate, but they need electricity to run the auger and blower—which erases the backup-heat advantage that makes wood appealing to rural Wichita County homeowners in the first place. If your main reason for considering either fuel is heat that survives a grid outage like Winter Storm Uri, wood is the more resilient option. If backup power isn't a concern and you just want low-maintenance supplemental heat, pellet is worth a look, though installers who stock it locally are even harder to find than wood specialists.

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.

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.

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.

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.