As the summer festival season approaches, the issue of storing family-sized propane tanks is enough to make anyone think twice before inviting a group of people over. There are many ways to offer your guests something other than waiting outside in the cold for cans and bottles of soda. One way is by giving them something they may not have – a gas fireplace heated by ethanol-based fuel. Those who enjoy cooking on a gas grill can use ethanol as part of their grilling experience or even use it in a fireplace insert for those chilly nights in late Autumn when cooking on their stove just isn’t an option.
Fueling a fireplace with ethanol or even heating your home’s gas fireplace with ethanol, is not something someone is going to be doing on a whim. Having several questions about ethanol fuel, as discussed in the article below, will help you make an informed decision when deciding what steps to take. The benefits of using ethanol in a fireplace include:
1. Because of its flexibility, consumers can choose the fuel size for their fireplace that best fits their needs and budget.
2. Using ethanol fuel eliminates the need to store propane bottles inside the house, which can pose problems when there are children around or even pets that may accidentally knock down a bottle and cause it to explode when lit.
3. Ethanol fuel is not prone to rusting and can last for hundreds of hours.
4. Ethanol ignites quickly, which benefits those who use a fireplace insert or fireplace insert that doesn’t come with an ignition system or one that may not work as well using propane fuel because of the needed priming period, which can take several minutes.
There are some downsides, however, to using ethanol instead of propane in your fireplace, depending on what kind of fireplace you have. One difficulty is that there may be a lack of availability in the emergency reserves during a natural disaster or other situations where ethanol fuel is taken out of production and transportation systems for some time. Another obstacle to ethanol fuel is that some newer fireplaces and inserts are not able to use it. All models of fireplaces and inserts may be able to use ethanol, but those that were made before the late 1980s are not recommended for such use. Another issue is that, because it is a newer fuel and still a developing technology, the price of the fuel can fluctuate more wildly than propane and even natural gas, which means those who want to add it to their home fueling system may face an increased cost at one time or another.
Throughout history, people have been using ethanol as a fuel because of its many benefits, including its ability to change forms to power different kinds of equipment depending on what kind of season it is. During the wintertime, it can be used for heating. During the summer, it can power a grill or even a water pump. It does have its uses in other areas as well.