Our Fireplace story

I’m a huge fan of fireplaces. I’ve spent so many nights as a kid warming up next to the Fireplace in the basement or my parent’s home or sitting by a camp fire. The smell, the sound, the heat, and the look of the flames that come with a fireplace make everything seem that much cozier and comforting. Not having one in our new house was really not an option for us, or at least for me. Some people insist on a big yard, a pool, a giant kitchen, I want a fireplace.

So I freaked when our contractor let us know that the gas fireplace and “to die for” mantle were no longer feasible. Well, at least not the natural gas one that we had in our contract. I had been told to expect things to suddenly be unavailable; we had expected the brand of the air conditioner to change, or maybe our tile for the bathroom to be out of stock, but a fireplace

No, out of all things it was the fireplace. Apparently Gaz Metro had changed the rules and was now charging $2K for the pipe for clients who did not have gas heating (it used to be free). If you are reading this and say: “yeah, well so what? It’s not your fault; make sure you read your contract. Our contract clearly stated that the contractor could replace items with other items of equal or greater value. But what exactly is the equivalent of a fireplace and what happens when the feature no longer available was a key factor in your decision process.

Our contractor’s suggestion, we will hook you up with a propane fireplace. When we checked into it, it turned out that a propane fireplace meant we had to rent a tank, get it filled and although I didn’t confirm this, even potentially increase our home insurance costs… equivalent my eye.

Anyway, we lucked out. My contractor turned out to be a fairly nice guy and we came to an agreement. We would change from hydro electricity to gas heating (including gas stove hookup, bbq hookup, and water heater) which he would provide at half the cost. We also found out he would be using our house as a guinea pig for NOVOCLIMAT

We are the first house they are building according to these new norms, and as a result, it’s free.

In the end, I think this worked out in our favor, but it took a lot of negotiating and preparing for it. Its always intimidating to negotiate when you have little to know clue what you are talking about. So far so good though.

See you by the fire

Pam