Valor Portrait & P2 — A Fireplace That Fits
The Valor Portrait is the narrow one. Tall where most fireplaces are wide, slim enough to slip into a chimney breast or a stud wall, it was drawn for the rooms other fireplaces can't reach — the heritage cottage with the small original hearth, the condo with one usable wall, the renovation where the framing is already half-closed. If a space can take a fireplace at all, it can usually take a Portrait.
That versatility is the whole point. The Portrait goes in two ways. It can be dropped into an existing masonry fireplace as an insert — turning a draughty old brick chimney into a sealed, efficient heater — or built in fresh to wood framing and finished in drywall, tile, or stone, no masonry required. Its venting configurations are unusually forgiving, which in plain terms means we can route the vent where the building would otherwise say no.
Then there is the matter of the face. Valor offers the Portrait in a long line of interchangeable fronts — the clean, frameless Clearview for a modern room; the President™ and Senator for something more upright and formal; the Windsor Arch and Ledgeview for the older houses, the early-century Craftsman and the post-war bungalow that want a fireplace in period. Inside, you choose the fire itself: logs, coals, driftwood, or rocks, set against reflective glass, fluted black, or red brick. Few fireplaces let you tune both the frame and the flame this precisely.
Underneath the styling, it is first a heater. The Portrait runs on a modest gas input but throws a generous, controllable radiant warmth — heating the room and the people in it directly, the way the sun does, without a fan and without electricity. When the power goes out, it keeps working. A Valor Plus remote lets you set a temperature, program it around your day, and idle it down overnight. And the flame picture, for a unit this compact, is genuinely good — tall, layered, and slow.
We show the Valor Portrait in the Curated collection because it solves the problems that usually stall a fireplace project: too little space, the wrong kind of wall, a heritage room that needs a traditional front and a modern heater both. But a fireplace this adaptable is only as good as the hands that place it — and placing them is what Maxwell Fireplace does best. Reading a difficult room, routing a vent where the building wants to say no, matching the right front to the right house: that is our craft, not an afterthought. It is, in the truest sense, a Creative FireSpace™ — where the constraint is real, and the answer still has to be beautiful.
Available as a zero-clearance build-in or a masonry insert, in natural gas or propane. The front, fuel bed, and venting are all specified to your room — let's look at the space together.
One fireplace, many faces
The same heater, dressed for the room it lives in.
Meet the P2, the next Portrait
The same idea, drawn a little taller.
Valor calls the P2 the next generation of the Portrait, and the family resemblance is plain: the same compact build, the same talent for going where other fireplaces cannot, the same radiant warmth with no fan and nothing asked of a wall socket. What changes is the window. The P2 gives the flame a little more height to rise in — 276 square inches of viewing area against the Portrait’s 258 — so the fire reads taller and fuller from across the room, and the fireplace keeps the compact build that made the Portrait so useful.
Almost everything you choose is shared with the Portrait. The P2 takes the same fronts, from the frameless Clearview to the Windsor Arch, and the same four fuel beds — driftwood, birch, traditional logs and coals — and both can be fitted with the HeatShift™ system, which draws the hottest air off the top of the fireplace so the wall above stays cool enough for a television or a painting.
What the P2 adds is the newest control. It comes with the Valor 10 remote, which pairs with an optional WiFi app to run the fire from a phone. And like every Valor, its ignition runs on batteries, so it lights and keeps warming the room when the power is out.
Which of the two suits a room is a question of the wall: the P2 for a little more height in the flame and the newer remote, the Portrait for the original. Valor lists the P2 for installation as an insert or as a zero-clearance fireplace built into new framing, in natural gas (model 200AN) or propane (200AP), and as always we measure the opening, the framing and the vent run before anything is ordered.
One fireplace. A face for every FireSpace™.
Questions people tend to ask
My space is too narrow for a fireplace. Is there anything that fits?
This is the one. The Portrait is tall where most fireplaces are wide, and slim enough to slip into a chimney breast or a stud wall — drawn for the rooms other fireplaces cannot reach: the heritage cottage with the small original hearth, the condo with one usable wall, the renovation where the framing is already half-closed. If a space can take a fireplace at all, it can usually take a Portrait.
Can it go into my existing masonry fireplace, or does it need new framing?
Either. It can be dropped into an existing masonry fireplace as an insert, turning a draughty old brick chimney into a sealed, efficient heater — or built in fresh to wood framing and finished in drywall, tile or stone with no masonry required at all.
The building won’t allow the vent run I need. Now what?
Often the Portrait is the answer to exactly that. Its venting configurations are unusually forgiving, which in plain terms means we can frequently route the vent where the building would otherwise say no. Reading a difficult room and finding that route is our craft rather than an afterthought — but it is a site question, so we look before we promise.
Does it work in a power outage?
Yes. It throws a generous, controllable radiant warmth, heating the room and the people in it directly the way the sun does — without a fan and without electricity. When the power goes out, it keeps working.
Can I get a traditional front on a modern heater?
That is the point of the range, and it solves the problem that stalls a lot of heritage projects. The fronts are interchangeable: the clean, frameless Clearview for a modern room; the President™ and Senator for something more upright and formal; the Windsor Arch and Ledgeview for older houses — the early-century Craftsman and the post-war bungalow that want a fireplace in period. Inside, you choose the fire itself: logs, coals, driftwood or rocks, set against reflective glass, fluted black or red brick. Few fireplaces let you tune both the frame and the flame this precisely.
Can I set it to a temperature rather than a flame height?
Yes — a Valor Plus remote lets you set a temperature, program the fire around your day, and idle it down overnight. And for a unit this compact the flame picture is genuinely good: tall, layered and slow.
What is the Valor P2, and how does it differ from the Portrait?
The P2 is Valor’s next-generation Portrait: the same compact, radiant build, the same fronts and fuel beds, and the same optional HeatShift™ system, with a slightly taller window — 276 square inches of viewing area against 258 — and the Valor 10 remote in place of the Valor Plus. We will tell you which one the wall suits.
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.
- The Valor L Series — three widths of low linear fire, and the taller Landscape LT1 and LT2
- The Valor LX2 — the L Series fire glazed on three sides or wrapped around a corner
- The Valor H Series — four sizes of radiant fire, from the compact H3 to the large-format H6
- The Valor H3 — the slim retrofit for the condominium
- The Valor Horizon — a wide, quiet window of fire, for an insert or a new wall
- The Valor G3, G3.5 & G4 — the gas insert for the masonry fireplace you already have
- The Valor G2 — the most compact insert, for the smallest of old openings
- The Valor Madrona — the cast iron gas stove in the Scandinavian manner
- The Valor President — the classic cast iron gas stove, thirteen inches deep
Planning a Valor for your own home? See how we install them on the North Shore and in Whistler.
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 Portrait belongs with us. A single fire with a face for every room only works if the face is chosen against the actual wall — its finish, its light, and whatever sits beside it — rather than from a page of thumbnails — and that 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.