Walk into our Maspeth showroom and the first question is almost never "gas or electric." It is "long and low, or the classic box?" That one decision shapes the wall, the furniture layout, where the TV goes, and how the room reads ten years from now. We have installed hundreds of both across Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey, so this guide is the conversation we have at the counter: proportions, mounting height, media, heat, the TV question, finishing materials, and which direct vent gas fireplaces and electric fireplaces we reach for in each style.
The short answer
Pick linear if the wall is wide, the room is open plan or contemporary, and you want a clean finished wall with a TV above. Pick traditional if the room has a mantel, trim, or a prewar or colonial bone structure, you want a log fire that reads like a wood fire, and you are not chasing a feature wall. Both come in gas and electric, and both can heat the room. The style should follow the architecture, not the trend.
Key takeaways
- A linear fireplace should cover at least a third of the visible wall width, and closer to half on a true feature wall. A 36 inch linear on a 14 foot wall looks like a mail slot.
- Traditional boxes mount low (6 to 12 inches off the floor) under a mantel. Linears mount raised, usually with the bottom of the glass 12 to 30 inches up.
- Gas linears burn hotter than traditional boxes (up to 44,000 BTU vs about 22,000) and throw that heat up the wall, so a TV above a gas linear needs a heat management kit.
- Electric linears sidestep the TV problem entirely: front-vented heat, cool glass, flame-only mode.
- Gas linears need non-combustible facing in the zone the manual specifies, so the tile setter and the installer have to coordinate. Traditional boxes need a mantel clearance chart instead.
- Vent-free gas cannot be installed in New York City, so every indoor gas option here, linear or traditional, is direct vent.
In this guide
- What do "linear" and "traditional" actually mean?
- How big should the fireplace be for the wall?
- How high off the floor should it mount?
- Glass, stones and driftwood, or logs?
- Which throws more heat, and can the TV go above it?
- Mantel or clean wall: what finishing does each need?
- Which works better see-through or multi-sided?
- Will linear go out of style?
- Our recommended models
- Which should you choose?
- Frequently asked questions
What do "linear" and "traditional" actually mean?
A linear fireplace is a wide, short viewing window, usually two to four times wider than it is tall. A 62 inch Napoleon Vector, for example, has a glass opening of about 64.5 by 26.8 inches. The flame runs as a ribbon along a burner, and the media underneath is typically glass, stones or a driftwood arrangement rather than a stacked log set. Most are frameless or use a thin trim so the wall finish runs right to the glass.
A traditional fireplace is closer to square. A Napoleon Ascent 42 shows roughly 37.7 by 23.7 inches of glass, with a full oak log set, brick or reflective panels, and often a louvered or decorative front. It is built to sit under a mantel and look like the masonry fireplace it replaced.
Both types in gas are direct vent: a sealed glass front, a coaxial pipe that pulls combustion air from outside and exhausts outside. That matters here because vent-free gas fireplaces cannot be installed inside New York City under the NYC Fuel Gas Code, so every indoor gas unit we install in the five boroughs is direct vent, whatever the shape. Electric versions of both styles skip the venting question entirely.
| Factor | Linear | Traditional |
|---|---|---|
| Viewing window | Wide and short, 36 to 100 inches | Near square, 30 to 46 inches |
| Typical media | Glass, stones, driftwood, luminous logs | Split oak or birch log set, brick panels |
| Mounting height | Raised, often 12 to 30 inches off the floor | Low, 6 to 12 inches off the floor |
| Surround | Clean wall, tile, stone, plaster | Mantel, legs, hearth |
| TV above | Designed for it, with heat management on gas | Possible, but the mantel pushes the TV high |
| Fits best in | Open plan, new construction, gut renovations | Prewar, colonial, Tudor, rooms with trim |
How big should the fireplace be for the wall?
The most common mistake we fix is a linear unit that is too small for its wall. A 36 inch linear on a 14 foot wall looks like a mail slot. Our rule of thumb at the showroom: a linear fireplace should cover at least a third of the visible wall width, and on a true feature wall closer to half. That is why the Napoleon Tall Vector 62 and the Superior DRL6000 72 sell so well in open plan Long Island living rooms, and why the 44 and 56 inch electrics go into Queens apartments where the wall is 9 or 10 feet.
Traditional fireplaces scale differently. Because they are near square and sit low, the mantel and the surround do the work of filling the wall. A 36 inch traditional box with a 60 inch mantel and stone legs reads as a full feature. Going up to a 42 or 46 inch box buys a bigger log set and taller flame, not a wider wall presence.
Ceiling height matters too. In a room with 8 foot ceilings, a tall linear like the Napoleon Tall Vector (the "tall" refers to its 26.8 inch glass height compared with the roughly 15 to 18 inch glass on most linears) can crowd the TV. In a loft with 11 foot ceilings, the standard short linear starts to look thin and the tall format or a traditional box fills the vertical better. Keep the fireplace in the bottom third of the wall when ceilings are low; that is Napoleon's own guidance and it matches what we see on site.
From our install team
Tape the viewing area on the wall with painter's tape before you order, at the height you plan to mount it. Then put the couch where it will live and sit down. Nine times out of ten the customer goes one size up after this, and it is a lot cheaper to learn that with tape than with framing.
How high off the floor should it mount?
Traditional gas fireplaces belong near the floor. Napoleon recommends 6 to 12 inches off the floor for the best look, and that is where the hearth and mantel proportions work. Raise a traditional box to 30 inches and it starts to look like a pizza oven.
Linear units are the opposite. They are meant to be raised so the flame line sits at seated eye level. Napoleon's guidance is that the bottom of a linear should be no higher than 42 inches off the floor, and in practice we land most living room installs with the bottom of the glass between 12 and 30 inches. Lower, around 12 to 18 inches, gives a grounded, architectural look. Higher, around 24 to 30 inches, puts the flame directly in your sightline from the sofa. In bedrooms, where you are viewing from a bed, 24 to 36 inches is typical.
Electric linears have their own numbers. Dimplex says the bottom of an IgniteXL should sit between 30 and 40 inches from the floor; Modern Flames and Amantii are flexible because their heaters vent out the top front and there is no combustion to manage. If a TV is going above, the TV decides the height: the bottom of a screen should be no higher than about 42 inches from the floor for comfortable viewing, and the fireplace gets centered in the space below it. With a gas linear that usually means a 12 to 15 inch fireplace bottom and a heat management kit, which brings us to the next section.
Glass, stones and driftwood, or logs?
Media is where the two styles diverge most on the showroom floor. A traditional unit ships with a log set, and the decision is which panels go behind it. The Napoleon Ascent 42 includes an oak PHAZER log set and offers reflective porcelain, herringbone brick, standard brick, Old Town Red and sandstone panels. The Majestic Quartz 36 takes the same approach with brick or reflective black glass interior panels. The Ascent also offers beach fire, shore fire and mineral rock kits, but a square firebox with glass media is a compromise; the flame pattern was designed around logs.
Linear units ship with crushed glass (Superior includes platinum crushed glass on the DRL3500 series), and the upgrades are stones, driftwood logs, or on the Napoleon Vector line a "luminous" oak or driftwood log set with a modulating LED ember bed underneath so the logs glow even at low flame. Our customers split about evenly between clean glass and driftwood. Glass reads modern and reflective; driftwood softens it and reads more like a beach fire. You can also mix in a second fire glass or media set for color.
Electric linears usually include all of it: the Modern Flames Landscape Pro Slim 56 ships with clear acrylic stones, black smoke crystals and a painted driftwood log set, and the flame and ember bed are full color RGB. A traditional electric like the Dimplex Revillusion 36 is built around a log set and a brick or concrete liner, and the flame technology is tuned for a wood fire look rather than color effects.
Which throws more heat, and can the TV go above it?
Here is the practical difference. A traditional direct vent box pushes heat out a louver or a grille at the top front and keeps the rest of the wall relatively cool, so the mantel takes some warmth and the wall above it takes less. A linear gas unit with a frameless glass front throws heat straight up the wall, because there is no louver and the glass is the radiating surface. Gas linears are also bigger burners: the Napoleon Tall Vector 62 is rated up to 44,000 BTU, the Luxuria 50 up to 36,000 BTU, versus about 22,000 BTU on an Ascent 42 and 24,000 BTU input on a Quartz 36.
That is why every gas linear brand now sells a heat management system, and why we will not install a TV above a gas linear without one. Napoleon's Dynamic Heat Control is a passive double wall that pulls heat off the glass and releases it through a vent higher up, and the optional Ducted Heat Management sends it to another room entirely. Napoleon notes that both reduce clearances to combustibles. Majestic's Echelon and Montigo's lines have ducted passive heat kits that do the same job. The manufacturers call this "cool wall" or "cool touch" technology, and it is the reason you can mount a TV at a reasonable height over a 40,000 BTU linear without cooking it. Most TV makers rate their screens to roughly 100 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and an unmanaged wall above a gas fireplace can run past that.
A mantel does not solve this on its own. Warm air wraps around a shallow mantel and keeps rising. A deep mantel helps and a mantel plus a heat management kit is the right combination for a traditional unit with a TV over it, but the mantel pushes the TV higher than most people want to watch.
Electric is the easy case. The Dimplex IgniteXL 60 puts out 1,500 watts (about 5,700 BTU) on 120 volts, or 2,500 watts hardwired at 240 volts, and the Landscape Pro Slim is about 5,000 BTU on a top front vent. Both can run flame only with the heater off, so a TV directly above is fine. Electric will warm a 400 square foot room; it will not heat a drafty 1,200 square foot open plan the way a gas linear will.
Not sure what fits your space? Send us a photo of the wall with rough dimensions and where the TV and couch will go, and we will tell you which size, height and heat management setup actually works. Book a free design consultation and we will help you narrow it down.
Mantel or clean wall: what finishing does each need?
A traditional fireplace is a mantel fireplace. Legs, a shelf, a hearth, and the box sits inside it. Browse fireplace mantels and you will see why this style survives: the mantel carries the room's trim language and gives you a place for art and stockings. The firebox can be fairly plain because the surround does the talking.
A linear fireplace is a wall fireplace. The finish runs right up to the glass, so the material is the design: large format porcelain tile, honed limestone, stacked quartzite, venetian plaster, or painted drywall with a thin trim. Clean wall means no mantel, and that is both the appeal and the constraint. There is nowhere to put the TV cables except inside the wall, so plan conduit and a recessed box before the drywall goes up.
On gas linears, the facing material around the glass must be non-combustible for a set distance in every direction. That means tile, stone, cement board and plaster over cement board, not drywall, wood or MDF, within the zone the installation manual specifies. The exact dimensions vary by model and by whether a heat management kit is installed, which is why we read the manual for every unit before framing. Above that zone, standard drywall is fine. Electric linears have no such rule because there is no combustion; a 2x4 or 2x6 wall and standard drywall work, and the trim kit covers the edge.
Traditional direct vent boxes also have mantel clearance charts: the deeper the mantel shelf, the higher it has to sit above the opening, and the chart is different for every model. If you are set on a specific mantel, bring its dimensions when you shop for the box, not after.
From our install team
On a frameless linear, the tile setter and the fireplace installer have to talk. The tile edge needs to land exactly at the glass channel, which means the unit has to be in and shimmed before the first tile goes on. We coordinate that sequence on every job because the fix, if it goes wrong, is tearing out finished stone.
Which works better see-through or multi-sided?
If you want fire visible from two rooms, both styles can do it, but linear does it better. The see-through collection is dominated by linear formats because a wide, shallow firebox can be glazed front and back without losing the flame line. The Tall Vector 62 see-through is the version we spec most between a living room and a dining room or a kitchen.
Three-sided bay and peninsula units are also linear territory. The Napoleon Tall Bay Luxuria 50 shows 56 by 21 inches of glass across three faces, runs up to 36,000 BTU, and includes Dynamic Heat Control as standard because a three-sided glass box throws heat everywhere. It needs 88 inches of framing height, so it is a design-from-scratch piece, not a retrofit. On the electric side, the Amantii Tru-View Slim 40 gives you the same three-sided glass effect at about 10.6 inches deep, rated for indoor or outdoor, which makes it an easy half wall or room divider.
Traditional see-through gas units exist, but they are less common and the log set has to look right from both sides, which limits the media choices.
Will linear go out of style?
We get asked whether linear is a fad. Our honest answer after selling them for well over a decade: linear is not going anywhere in modern and transitional homes, and it is the wrong choice in a prewar or a center hall colonial. Designers say the same thing. The fireplace should match the architecture of the house, and a linear slot in a room full of crown molding and six panel doors reads as a mashup, and a corbeled mantel in a glass box loft reads as costume.
What has dated is not the shape but the finish. Multicolor stacked fieldstone surrounds from the early 2000s and heavy ornamental mantels are what designers now call out as tired. A linear fireplace in a plain plaster wall or a traditional box in a simple painted mantel with a single slab of stone both age well, because they are quiet.
For resale, buyers in NYC and on Long Island expect a gas fireplace to work with a remote and to look current. Neither style hurts you if it is executed cleanly. A mismatch to the house does.
Our recommended models
These are the units we spec most often once a customer has settled on a style. Every one is a current model we stock, install and service, and each label marks the job it does best.
Linear picks
Traditional picks
Also worth a look
Linear gas. The Montigo DelRay 48 sits in the same mid tier as the Slayton and shares its reputation with our installers. The 72 inch Superior DRL6000 is the answer for a 14 foot wall.
Traditional gas. The Napoleon Ascent X 42 is the step up from the standard Ascent with a taller flame and more front options. The Majestic Quartz comes in 32, 36 and 42, with the Quartz 36 Platinum adding a contemporary front and IntelliFire Touch controls. The Superior DRT3500 40 is the value traditional box, and the Kozy Heat Bayport 36 is the one we recommend when the customer wants the most convincing gas log fire.
Electric. The Dimplex IgniteXL line runs from 50 to 100 inches; Modern Flames Landscape Pro Slim adds Wi-Fi and multi-sided versions; Amantii's Panorama and Tru-View series are rated indoor or outdoor. For traditional electric, Dimplex Revillusion comes in 24, 30, 36 and 42. Browse the linear electric, traditional electric and modern electric collections for the full range.
Direct Vent Gas FireplacesLinear ElectricTraditional ElectricSee-ThroughMantelsFire Glass & Media
Which should you choose?
Choose linear if:
- The wall is 10 feet or wider and the room is open plan or contemporary.
- A TV is going above the fireplace and you want it at a watchable height.
- You want a clean tile, stone or plaster wall with no mantel.
- You are building the wall from scratch and can plan conduit, non-combustible facing and a heat management kit.
- You need fire visible from two rooms or three sides.
Choose traditional if:
- The house is prewar, colonial, Tudor or anything with crown molding and trim.
- You want a log fire that reads like a wood fire, with a mantel for art and stockings.
- The wall is under 10 feet or the ceiling is 8 feet and a long slot would crowd the room.
- You want the simpler install: the mantel hides the framing and there is no tile edge to coordinate.
- Heat matters more than a feature wall.
Our recommendation: let the architecture decide. In a loft, a new build or a gut renovation with an open plan, go linear, size it to at least a third of the wall, and pair a gas unit with heat management if a TV is going above. In a prewar apartment, a center hall colonial or any room already wearing trim, go traditional and put the money into a simple mantel and one good slab of stone. If the room sits between the two, the Napoleon Ascent Linear 46 is the transitional answer: a modest linear proportion that still works under a mantel.
Frequently asked questions
Can I put a TV above a linear gas fireplace?
Yes, with a heat management kit. Gas linears throw heat straight up the wall, and the manufacturers sell passive or ducted heat management systems that pull that heat off the glass and release it higher up or into another room. We will not mount a TV over a gas linear without one. Electric linears do not have this problem, since the heater vents out the front and can be switched off.
How high off the floor should a linear fireplace be?
Napoleon recommends the bottom be no higher than 42 inches from the floor. In living rooms we usually land between 12 and 30 inches; lower looks architectural, higher puts the flame at seated eye level. If a TV is going above, set the TV bottom at about 42 inches first and center the fireplace in the space below it. Dimplex specifically recommends 30 to 40 inches for the bottom of an IgniteXL.
Does a linear fireplace give off less heat than a traditional one?
No, usually more. Gas linears are bigger burners; a Napoleon Tall Vector 62 is rated up to 44,000 BTU while a traditional Ascent 42 is around 22,000 BTU. The difference is where the heat goes: a traditional box pushes it out a top louver, while a frameless linear radiates through the glass and up the wall unless a heat management kit redirects it.
Which is cheaper to install, linear or traditional?
Traditional direct vent is usually the simpler job because the mantel hides the framing and there is no non-combustible facing to coordinate with a tile setter. Linear gas adds heat management, non-combustible facing and often in-wall TV wiring. Electric in either style is the least work since there is no venting or gas line. We quote each job on site rather than from a chart.
Can I use a vent-free linear or traditional gas fireplace in NYC?
No. Vent-free gas fireplaces cannot be installed inside New York City under the NYC Fuel Gas Code. Every indoor gas fireplace we install in the five boroughs is direct vent. Vent-free is legal in much of the rest of the country, and we sell those units for customers outside the city, but if you are in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx or Staten Island the choice is direct vent gas or electric.
Do linear fireplaces go out of style?
Not in the homes they belong in. Designers consistently say the fireplace should match the architecture: linear suits modern and transitional spaces, traditional suits prewar, colonial and Tudor rooms. What has dated is the finish, not the shape; busy multicolor stone and heavy ornamental mantels are what look tired now. A linear in a plain plaster wall and a traditional box in a simple painted mantel both hold up.
Can I convert a traditional gas fireplace to a linear look?
Not really. The firebox proportions are fixed, and a square box with glass media still looks like a square box. Majestic sells contemporary media conversion kits for the Quartz line and Napoleon sells beach fire and rock kits for the Ascent, which clean up the look, but if you want a true linear ribbon of flame you need a linear unit.
Talk to a specialist
Linear or traditional, we will size it to your wall and install it
We have been designing, selling, installing and servicing fire features and outdoor kitchens for over 30 years across New York City, Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey and South Florida. Bring a photo and rough wall dimensions and we will show you both styles burning side by side in the showroom.
Book a free consultationCall 718-326-4328Showroom: 58-30 Maspeth Ave, Maspeth, Queens.
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Written by the NYC Fireplaces & Outdoor Kitchens team. Last reviewed October 2026. We sell, install and service the products discussed here.
Sources:Napoleon Tall Linear Vector 62 specifications, Napoleon Tall Bay Luxuria 50 specifications, Napoleon Ascent 42 specifications, Napoleon fireplace height guide, Majestic Quartz series specifications, Dimplex IgniteXL and Revillusion spec sheets, Modern Flames Landscape Pro Slim, Valor on TVs above gas fireplaces, 2022 New York City Fuel Gas Code. Specifications change; always confirm with the manufacturer's current installation manual.