You might not realize this, but if you don't already have a fan inside your fireplace, you can absolutely add one to it to make your gas fireplace more efficient. The first thing you need to do is make sure your fireplace has an electrical outlet on the inside. So all you have to do is open this up at the bottom, and there should be an electrical receptacle on either the left or the right side in the back.

So take a look on the inside and see if you can find one in some of the different fireplace models. If yours is a square fireplace or not this shape, you might still have an electrical receptacle in there, but you're going to have to search a little bit to see where that is. If you have a switch on the wall that seems to do nothing, and it's right next to the switch that actually turns your gas fireplace on, then most likely it's set up to have a switched outlet or switch receptacle in the base of the fireplace.

If you have that situation, that's what it's for. So it's a good idea before you start tackling this job, though, to make sure that that receptacle works. So I plug something into it, like a lamp or something like that to be able to see, make sure it has power in it. You can even use a receptacle or outlet tester plug it in to make sure it lights up. Now, if it doesn't seem to work, there's a couple of things you can check. One is to make sure that the breaker that this is connected to is actually on and not tripped, or even off.

Check your breaker panel for that. In the case that it might be controlled by a switch, make sure your switch is on and then test to make sure whatever you have plugged into this is working. Once you've confirmed that you have power in this area, then you can go ahead and buy a fan and get going on the project. All right. So this is the model that I've gone with. Pretty much all of these look just about the same. There's, like a squirrel cage fan here.

There's a place where you plug power into it. There's another switch, another part here. They'll show you in a second. But basically, you put this in the back of the fireplace, at least on this model on the back of the fireplace, and it's going to blow air from the bottom up around the firebox and out the top. So it's going to heat up your living room or wherever your fireplace is installed and make this a lot more efficient and more like an actual element to heat your home versus just a decorative piece.

So some things to look for in selecting a high-quality unit. Make sure that you get one that has ball bearings for the fan because you don't want this to wear out. Sleeve bearings are okay, but they're going to wear out after a couple of seasons. The ball bearings that are in this should make this last for a long time. Also, when you're looking at these, make sure they have some kind of rubber to isolate them. Any kind of rubber that is on the bottom of the metal will help with any kind of noise and vibration from the fan.

That way, it's not too loud and it's a lot quieter when it's in use. The other thing this model includes is this switch. Now, this switch is a way to control the speed of the fan, and you can also turn it off here. So if you don't have a wall switch, this is a really great way to be able to control not only the fan speed but also be able to turn it on and off when you like, you don't need a switch that you can turn off.

In fact, I'm just going to leave this on because this also comes with a thermal switch, which looks like this. And the thermal switch here has got a magnet on it, and it's got the thermal piece as well. And what this does is it will sit underneath the firebox. It's just going to adhere to the bottom side of the firebox. And once the firebox gets to a certain temperature, then it's going to automatically turn the fan on, which will cycle the hot air into the room.

This is great because it's also going to turn off whenever the firebox cools down to a certain temperature. And so between this and the speed control, you really don't need this to turn off. So I'm just going to set it to the speed that I like. And also if you have a wall Mount switch, you can just leave that on if you like or you can turn it off. Just remember that if you control with the switch on the wall, it's not going to kick on if you have a thermal switch until the firebox heats up to the right temperature.

All right, so now that all that information is out of the way, let's go ahead and get started with the install. Do you need to remove this bottom vent? Now mine is just held on by a magnet. So I just need to pull out. And then in order to get the rest of this removed completely, then you'll need to either remove some screws on either side to be able to get the pins out. Or in this case, I've got this little lever here on mine that I could just pull in.

This is really dirty inside. So we're going to clean out all the dirt and dust with a vacuum and a towel. We're going to get everything out of here before we start putting in the new fan. You might think cleaning this out is an unnecessary step, but this cavity is where all the air is going to come through to the fan and going to be blown out into your house. So I highly recommend you make sure that this is cleaned out.

You can see there's a lot of extra wire here. So I'm just going to kind of fold this up and use a zip tie to get this nice and organized and out of the way and get this to the back where it's supposed to go. There's a couple of tabs at the bottom of the firebox. So you want to make sure this is lined up when you go to install it permanently, especially since this model specifically has some adhesive Velcro strips. So when I push this towards the back of the wall, I want to make sure that these notches are lined up with these tabs in the bottom.

All right. So I'm going to pull this fan back out. I'm going to go ahead and make the electrical connections, since that's the side where the gas lines are, it's going to be a lot harder for me to reach if it's in the very back of the box. So I'm going to go ahead and connect the motor up to the switch. Now, these leads can go on either terminal, so it doesn't matter the order. I'm just going to push these on now. I'm going to flip this around, being careful with the wires, and I'm going to pull the adhesive tape off the back of the Velcro.

Now I'm going to pivot this around, make sure it's not all the way up the back of the box until everything is lined up. Make sure these tabs are in the right spot at the bottom here. It's not super important, but you want to get it close, push on both sides to make sure the Velcro adheres. Now I'm going to bend the tabs up, just need to bend it up to where it holds it in place inside where your gas line is. It might be pretty difficult to reach this.

Make sure you don't do anything risky that's going to damage the gas line. It's better to have an intact gas line than it is to have this tab to hold the fan in place. In hindsight, it would have been a little bit better for me to pre-bend these tabs just a little bit so that way I could get a screwdriver underneath it when it was time to install it. But I didn't. So you can learn from my mistakes! If you want to Mount this fan controller to the bottom of this box, you're certainly able to do that.

But in my case, I think I'm just going to leave it where it is. There's a lot of room on this side that's not being used. And I don't see any reason why this can't just sit on the floor of this fireplace. Another thing you may or may not have is this temperature sensor. Basically, this just adheres to the bottom of the firebox with this magnet and just that position out of the way. And then once the fireplace reaches a specific temperature, then the fan will kick on automatically.

Last. But not least, I'm going to get this plugged in, so just give it one final look over before you close this up and test it, make sure all the wires are out of the way, especially all the new ones. They're not in the way of the fan. It looks like everything is good here. So I'm going to go ahead and turn the gas line on, start at the fireplace and make sure the fan kicks in.