Almost every masonry fireplace we look at can take gas. The work is not the same on every one, and the size of the job comes down to one question you can answer yourself.
The question is whether you want a fire or you want heat. They lead to two different projects, at two different scales, and everything else follows from that answer.
Want a fire: a set of gas logs sits in the firebox you already have, the chimney keeps doing what it has always done, and the room looks the way it looked. Want heat: a gas insert is a sealed appliance that slides into the firebox, gets its own liner run up the chimney, and puts a useful share of what it burns into the room instead of out the top of the house.
People usually arrive asking which appliance to buy. It is a better conversation in the other order.
Two things are non-negotiable before anything gets installed, and neither has anything to do with the appliance.
Gas has to reach the fireplace. A lot of older masonry fireplaces in Floyd and Cherokee counties have no gas line anywhere near them. Some have a line that was run for a log lighter decades ago and capped. Finding out is the first site visit, and it is the item most likely to change the scope of the job, because running a line from the meter to a fireplace on an outside wall is a different afternoon than picking one up from a nearby appliance.
In Georgia, that piping is licensed work. The Construction Industry Licensing Board covers plumbers and conditioned air contractors through the Secretary of State's office, gas piping falls under the plumbing definition, and you can look up any license by name at sos.ga.gov before anyone opens a wall. It is a two minute check.
The chimney has to be looked at. Georgia's gas code is direct about this, and it is written for exactly the situation you are in. Before a vent connector goes into a chimney, the passageway has to be examined to make sure it is clear and free of obstructions, and it has to be cleaned if it was previously used for venting solid fuel. A wood fireplace is a solid fuel appliance. That means a cleaning, not a glance up from the hearth.
The same chapter requires that the flue liner be continuous and free of cracks, gaps and perforations, that any abandoned inlet openings be closed by an approved method, and that a chimney be sized to control condensation and provide the draft the appliance needs. On a fireplace that has been burning wood for forty years, the inspection is the part that occasionally changes the plan.
Which code book applies right now: the 2024 International Fuel Gas Code with Georgia Amendments took effect January 1, 2026, and it is the current Georgia State Minimum Standard Gas Code. If you are reading section numbers from the 2018 edition, they have moved.
A burner and a set of ceramic logs sit in the firebox, the damper stays open, and the exhaust goes up the chimney the way smoke did. This is the closest thing to the fire you already had, and it is the simplest install: a gas line, a set, and an afternoon.
The honest limitation is that an open fireplace running vented logs sends most of its heat up the flue, and with the damper held open it keeps pulling room air up there when the fire is off unless it is closed. Vented logs are for the look of a fire. Nobody should buy them expecting a heating bill to change.
The exhaust stays in the room, which is why they heat well and why the code puts fences around them. Under the current gas code an unvented room heater cannot be the sole source of heat in a dwelling, cannot exceed 40,000 BTU per hour input, and the total input of all unvented appliances in a space cannot exceed 20 BTU per hour per cubic foot of room volume. They are not permitted in sleeping rooms or bathrooms, with narrow exceptions for small wall-mounted units with an oxygen depletion safety shutoff: 6,000 BTU per hour in a bathroom, 10,000 in a bedroom.
Which set your fireplace and your room can take is the whole subject of our vented or vent-free post, including how the room volume math works. Read that one before you choose a set.
This is the conversion people mean when they say the fireplace does not heat. An insert is a sealed firebox with a glass front that fits inside the masonry opening. It has its own listed venting, which runs as a liner from the appliance up through the existing chimney, and because the combustion chamber is sealed off from the room it is not pulling your heated air up the flue.
It is the most work of the three and the only one that changes what the fireplace does. A liner goes up the chimney, the gas line lands at the firebox, the unit is set and connected, and a surround closes the gap between the appliance and the masonry opening. It is also the reason the chimney examination matters: a flue that is out of round, offset, or tighter than the liner the appliance calls for is something to find in week one.
Five numbers and one photograph turn a vague conversation into a short one. Inserts in particular are sized to the opening, and a firebox that tapers front to back is the usual surprise.
Permitting is a local call rather than a state one, and it differs between Rome, Floyd County, Canton and Cherokee County. Assume gas piping and a vented appliance are permitted and inspected work, ask your building department, and keep the paperwork. It matters twice: once when something needs warranty service, and again when you sell the house and a home inspector asks what is behind the surround.
If the fireplace is the centerpiece of a room you already heat, and you want to stop hauling wood, vented logs do that and nothing more, cheerfully, for a long time.
If you light a fire because the room is cold, buy the insert. It is the difference between a fireplace you look at and a fireplace that takes a load off the furnace, and it is the one conversion people tell us afterwards they wish they had done first.
If you are not sure, bring the measurements and the photo to Rome or Canton and we will tell you what your fireplace can take. You can see inserts and gas sets burning live in both showrooms. We have been answering this one since 1974, and it usually takes ten minutes.
Sources
Permitting is set locally rather than by the state. Confirm with the building department for Rome, Floyd County, Canton or Cherokee County before work starts.
Bring the measurements
Width front and back, height, depth, and a photo. Ten minutes at the counter and you will know whether you are buying logs or an insert.