Absolutely not!!! Not only are they pretty and relaxing and romantic (wink wink!!) I actually lowered my gas bill by about $80-100 a month in the winter. Looking for cheap wood??... find a neighbor who is having a tree cut down and ask the company what they do with the tree. I heated my house for about 3 yrs. from a house down the block. I asked the tree guys what they did with it and they said they were going to chip it. I asked them if there was any way they could not chip it and just load it onto my truck in kinda manageable sizes and drove it home. The only expense I had was going to Home Depot to rent a log splitter for 2 days and a case of beer for my husband and his friends to split and stack the wood up in the back yard under a tarp!!