# Easy to swap from B vent to Direct vent?



## Lucky Strike (Oct 13, 2021)

We are redoing our living room and it has an old Earth Stove G136 gas insert in the masonry wood burning fireplace w/ chimney.   Our fireplace masonry opening is 36" wide by 27" tall.   The insert is old fashioned looking with a very small viewing window.    We just use the unit for supplemental heat during the winter.  

We are wanting to swap it out for a  more modern  unit (looking at the Regency Horizon series) but I see that those are direct vent units.   Just going by the age of the Earth Stove (mid 90's) I'm assuming it's a b vent unit.  

Is it possible to swap out a b vent with a direct vent without a ton of hassle?    Im assuming a new vent pipe would need to be run but don't know how difficult that is for an installer. 

If it's way too much work/$ then I see that Regency also has a b vent model called the Energy that would probably make things easier but it doesn't look as good as the Horizon imo.  Just trying to figure out what my options are.

Also if anyone has some suggestions for other models to look at that are comparable to the Regency models mentioned in performance/price that'd be much appreciated.  Just starting out learning about all this gas insert stuff.

 Any help is much appreciated


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## DAKSY (Oct 14, 2021)

B-Vent is NOT adaptable to Direct Vent. They are two completely different units.
The entire venting system will need to be changed out.
Without knowing exactly what your venting configuration is, 
It's impossible to say how much of a hassle the changeover will be,
but a qualified installer should be able to give you an estimate..


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## Lucky Strike (Oct 14, 2021)

DAKSY said:


> B-Vent is NOT adaptable to Direct Vent. They are two completely different units.
> The entire venting system will need to be changed out.
> Without knowing exactly what your venting configuration is,
> It's impossible to say how much of a hassle the changeover will be,
> but a qualified installer should be able to give you an estimate..


Thanks,  I understand now that if I want a direct vent unit I will need to install a whole new venting system.  When I look behind my old Earth Stove unit I see a single flex line running up the chimney.  

It's a three story house (lower level is daylight basement...fireplace is on main level) so the chimney is pretty tall.  Just didn't know if pulling out a single flex line and installing  dual ones for a direct vent setup is considered a major endeavor on average.   I like the horizon DV  insert over the energy B Vent model but not enough to want to pay thousands to an installer to replace my vent system.   However if it were like $1k or less that'd be a different story.  Guess I need to get an installer at my place to give me a quote.


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