WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-Stretching Your Dollar... Tax rebates for fireplaces

Stretching Your Dollar... Tax rebates for fireplaces

By Maureen O'Boyle - bio l email

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - There is nothing like cozying up to the fire on a chilly night, but most regular wood burning fireplaces look good but don’t do much to heat your home.

In fact, you lose a lot of heat right up that fireplace chimney.  That is one of the reasons the federal government and some states are offer tax rebates as incentive to switch out that energy zapping fireplace with a biomass heat source, like a wood burning stove or pellet stove.

Barry Sims from Patio and Fireplace by Design of Fort Mill South Carolina is busy with installs this month.

“We are seeing a very large increase of people buying and having them installed.  Not only for the tax purposes, but they also burn so efficiently now and put off a real nice heat,” says Sims.

“The rebate is really what got us to start the process.  We got about a third of the original cost back,” says Richard Brown.  On Friday the temps dropped and the family put the new stove to the test. 

“We turned off the heat the entire night and it warmed up everything,” says Brown.  Brown who grew up with a wood burning stove feels great about the monthly savings as well. 

“We were spending about three hundred dollars a month on fuel.  We’re going to work hard to just use the stove and we plan to save the cost of the stove and installation in a couple of years.” 

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