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A Creative FireSpace™ · 01 November 2026

The Valor G3.5 — The Everyday Insert, Done Properly

Valor G3.5 gas insert with a Vintage Iron Floating front and a traditional log fire, set into a wall of grey fieldstone with a slate hearth, a lamp and a carved owl on the ledge beside it
Valor G3.5 gas insert with a pewter Edgemont Craftsman front and birch logs, set into a grey geometric-tile surround under a wood mantel and a television, a tan leather armchair beside it

Most of the masonry fireplaces in the homes we work in are neither small nor grand. They are the ordinary brick opening of a house built between the wars and the eighties: a little over two feet wide, a little under two feet high, built for a wood fire and lit, these days, almost never. The Valor G3.5 was drawn for exactly that opening, and it is the insert we reach for more often than any other.

Behind the glass is a window of 354 square inches, wide and low, and the fire in it is unmistakably Valor: a slow, full flame over birch, driftwood or traditional logs, set against a liner of Ledgestone, reflective glass, fluted black or red brick. The warmth is radiant — the direct, settling kind you feel from a wood fire — and Valor rates the current engine, the 700RN for natural gas and the 700RP for propane, at a maximum input of 26,000 BTU/h and an efficiency of 70 percent.

The front is where the room is decided. The Floating fronts, three-sided or four-sided, in black, Vintage Iron or bronze, let the fire sit almost frameless in a modern wall; the Edgemont gives it a quiet, solid edge; and the Edgemont Craftsman, in black, pewter or Champagne Brass, puts a fireplace in period into a Craftsman or heritage room. Eleven fronts in all, and every one of them wider than the fire, so it covers the rough edge of the old brick rather than asking the mason to be perfect.

Valor G3.5 gas insert with a black Edgemont Craftsman front and birch logs against a Ledgestone liner, set into a pale marble wall above a long marble hearth with a woven basket beside it

The rest of the G3.5 is quiet. The Valor 10 remote comes with it, and pairs with Valor’s app if you would rather run the fire from a phone. The ignition runs on batteries, so the fire lights and keeps warming the room when a winter storm takes the power. Valor’s HeatShift™ system is available to carry the hottest air away from the top of the fireplace, so the wall above stays cool enough for a television or a painting, and a circulating fan is there as an option for anyone who wants the warmth moved around.

What the brochure cannot show is the opening itself. A gas insert is a guest in an older fireplace, and the guest has to be measured: the cavity, the hearth, the mantel above, and the flue it will vent through. The G3.5 is a direct-vent appliance, sealed from the room and drawing its air from outdoors, so the chimney has to be sound enough to carry a liner. Reading that wall is the work of Maxwell Fireplace — in-house, at your fireplace, before anything is ordered — along with the permit, the installation and the care that comes after. Its siblings are the compact G2 and the large G4; we tell you plainly which one your wall will carry.

Valor G3.5 gas insert with a three-sided Floating front and a traditional log fire against a red brick liner, set into a dark slate surround between two white columns beneath an abstract painting

The ordinary opening deserves the proper fire.

Questions people tend to ask

Will the G3.5 fit my fireplace?

It is the Valor insert sized for the ordinary masonry opening. Valor gives the minimum cavity as 28 7/8 inches wide, 20 1/2 inches high and 13 1/2 inches deep, and the fronts run from about 29 to 34 1/2 inches wide, so there is a front to cover most openings and the rough edge of the old brick. A smaller opening usually calls for the G2, a grand one for the G4. We measure before anything is ordered.

What is the difference between the 700RN and the 700RP?

The fuel. The 700RN burns natural gas and the 700RP burns propane. Both are rated at a maximum input of 26,000 BTU/h, with a lowest setting of 13,000 BTU/h on natural gas and 11,000 on propane. Valor lists the maximum heat output at 20,933 BTU/h and the EnerGuide efficiency at 70 percent for both. Which one you need is settled by the gas supplied to your home.

Is the G3.5 the same as the 700XN?

The 700XN is the earlier engine of the same insert, and Valor now files its manuals under the archive. The current G3.5 is the 700R engine, sold as the 700RN and 700RP, with the Valor 10 remote. If you own a 700XN, the fronts, liners and fuel beds are the same family, and we can tell you what still fits.

Will it light when the power is out?

Yes. Like every Valor it runs as a heater without any electrical supply from the house; the ignition runs on batteries, and the fire keeps warming the room through a winter power cut. Only the optional circulating fan wants a wall socket.

How much can I choose?

A great deal. Three fuel beds, birch, driftwood and traditional logs; four liners, Ledgestone, reflective glass, fluted black and red brick; and eleven current fronts: the three- and four-sided Floating fronts in black, Vintage Iron or bronze, the Edgemont in black, Vintage Iron or bronze, and the Edgemont Craftsman in black, pewter or Champagne Brass. Two G3.5s can look nothing alike.

Can I hang a television above it?

Valor offers its HeatShift™ system for the G3.5, which carries the hottest air away from the top of the fireplace so the wall above stays cooler. Whether a television can go there depends on the mantel and Valor’s clearances, so we confirm it against your wall before anything is ordered.

How is it vented?

The G3.5 is a direct-vent insert, sealed from the room: it draws its air from outdoors and sends its exhaust out through its own liner, which usually runs up the chimney that is already there. Valor lists a co-linear terminal for the top of the chimney and a sidewall terminal for the 700R engine. We look at the flue before we quote.

More from Valor

This is one of the Valor gas fireplaces, inserts and stoves we carry and install at Maxwell Fireplace in North Vancouver. See every Valor we carry, or read on.

Planning a Valor for your own home? See how we install them on the North Shore and in Whistler.

Creative FireSpaces™

A fireplace is only half of it. The other half is who places it.

Maxwell Fireplace is North Vancouver’s Creative FireSpaces™ — and we stay involved in every part of the job. The fireplace itself is ours from the first conversation to the final flame: design and placement, permitting, delivery, installation, and the care that comes after. When the work runs to a surround, a mantel, tile or millwork, we plan it with the trades doing it — yours, or ones we bring in — so the fire and the wall are drawn as one thing rather than two. One point of contact, and nothing lost in the gap between trades.

It’s exactly why a Valor G3.5 belongs with us. The everyday insert is the one most often installed carelessly, with a front chosen from a page and a liner run without a look at the flue — and getting the measuring, the front and the vent right is the difference between an appliance and a centrepiece. We serve homeowners and contractors across Greater Vancouver, the North Shore, and the Sea to Sky Corridor — Squamish to Whistler and Pemberton — and we’d love to show you what’s possible for your room.

Make it yours.

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