Our Process

The details behind installing your Lock Arbor gas fireplace

Gas fireplace listings and the installation manual

The Florida fuel gas code treats a gas fireplace as a listed appliance. Vented gas fireplaces are listed to ANSI Z21.50 and vented gas fireplace heaters to ANSI Z21.88, and both are installed in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions (sections 604.1 and 605.1). Both are also equipped with a flame safeguard that shuts off the burner gas if ignition fails.

In practice, the manual for your model is the rulebook for the job. Our installers read it before the framing is planned and follow it through venting, clearances, gas connection and finish. The rating plate on your Lock Arbor fireplace tells you which listing it carries.

Rooms where a gas fireplace can be installed

Some rooms are off limits to gas appliances unless the installation meets an exception. Section 303.3 of the fuel gas code keeps appliances out of sleeping rooms, bathrooms and storage closets, except for a direct-vent appliance installed per its listing and the manufacturer's instructions, or a vented gas fireplace in a room that meets the code's volume criteria.

For a gas fireplace in a bedroom or a small room in your Lock Arbor home, a direct-vent unit is usually the path, and we confirm the listing allows it before anything is ordered. The room is part of the free inspection.

Vent caps near porches, decks and soffits

A cap under a porch or deck is allowed only in limited cases. Table 503.8 permits it 12 inches below a veranda, porch, deck or balcony that is open on at least two sides, and prohibits it where only one side is open. One direct-vent manual adds that termination in a screened porch is not permitted.

Roof overhangs matter too. The same manual asks for 18 inches below a ventilated soffit and 30 inches below vinyl soffit material. Our installers check every overhang near the planned cap on your Lock Arbor home against the manual for your model.

Framing the opening for a new gas fireplace

The framed opening has to fit the unit and its finish. One direct-vent manual notes that if the inside of the framed cavity will be finished, the framing dimensions must include the finished surface, and that framing or finishing material on or in front of the unit closer than the listed minimums must be entirely noncombustible, such as steel studs and concrete board.

Our crew frames to the maker's instructions, sets the standoffs where the maker shows them and checks every clearance before the wall is closed in your Lock Arbor home.