Wood Stove and Wood Insert Installation

Hardly anyone in the Chicago area heats a house with wood. The Census puts wood as main heat at about 0.02 percent of Chicago homes, and gas does the work in 75 to 91 percent of them. A wood stove here is about the room, the fire and a backup when the power is out on a cold night, and an old open fireplace does a poor job of all three.

A wood stove or a wood insert set into the fireplace burns with a closed door, so far less heated room air goes up the chimney. It needs a flue sized for it, which in an older masonry chimney almost always means a new stainless liner, and it needs the clearances to wood framing that its maker lists.

Signs you need this

• An open fireplace that heats the chimney more than the room
• An old stove with cracked parts, warped doors or worn gaskets
• A large, old clay flue that a new stove would draft poorly in
• Wanting a backup heat source for winter outages
• A stove connected to a chimney nobody has checked in years

How we do it

1. Site visit and quote, freeWe look at the room, the hearth, the chimney and the flue, and measure clearances to walls and framing.
2. Choose stove and linerWe go over stoves or inserts that fit, and size a stainless liner to the stove maker's requirements.
3. Prepare the chimneyRepairs to the crown, flue or firebox are done first, and the hearth is checked for the floor protection the stove needs.
4. Install and walk you through itThe stove and liner go in, the cap goes on, and we light the first fire with you and go over how to run it.

Insert or freestanding stove?

A wood insert slides into an existing masonry fireplace and vents up a liner through the old chimney. It keeps the room's layout and turns the fireplace into a heater. A freestanding stove stands on a hearth pad in front of the fireplace or elsewhere in the room, and vents into the chimney or through its own pipe. Either way, the stove's maker sets the flue size and the clearances.

What it costs

Typical 2026 ranges: replacing an existing wood stove runs $3,000 to $5,000; putting a stove into an existing masonry chimney $4,000 to $8,000; and a wood insert, installed, $3,000 to $8,000+. A stainless liner is often part of the job and typically runs $900 to $3,800 on its own. The written quote shows each piece.

Rules worth knowing

There is no wood-burning ban program in Chicago or Illinois of the kind some western cities use. The City of Chicago does restrict open fires outdoors, which doesn't cover a stove in your house.

CO alarms matter with any wood appliance. Illinois requires an alarm within 15 feet of every room used for sleeping in a home with a fireplace or fuel-burning heater, and Chicago covers homes with a wood-burning heating stove and requires an alarm inside any bedroom that has one. The City of Chicago also says to have a vented fireplace's chimney cleaned every year, and we check what your city requires before an install.