I am of the same mind as you, wanting to give my gas fireplace log set a little more realism, I started looking for solutions. Frankly, the least expensive glowing ember type came from Home Depot, for about $8 for a 8 oz bag labeled as 8 lbs, but only contains 8 oz. I thought why pay for that tiny little bit when I can use plain old rock wool insulation batts or mineral wool? Can't find anything other than a possible smell (probably give you sinus cancer or something!) but nothing stating it can't be used for that purpose? So whats a frugal girl to do? Thats right! Search the internet! So far, can't find anything, other than this site, asking the same question! Anybody? I have a natural gas set, recently installed, and the gas company inspected it and turned on the pilot light. Now I am ready for some fireplace ambiance, and I realized, it needs some coals, embers, something to make it look and feel a little more realistic. The logs look fine, a little incense fixes the aroma of burning wood portion, but now for the glowing embers. Hope someone has some info on this, before I have to break down and BUY burning embers from Home Depot! Thanks all!

I ordered up some "glowing embers" from Home Depot for $7.94 shipped to my local store for free, I picked them up this week! I used 2 metal grates for a grill to hold vegetables or fish on the grill that I bought the 2 of the at my local Salvation Army for $1.00 and cut them up to fit in between the ceramic logs and carefully put the "Glowing Embers" into the well shaped wells I formed and put just out of sight but right over the top of the gas burner, without touching it directly. Inside the fireplace I placed the "Glowing Embers" which seemed very light, but was more than enough to fill the three "grates" I made to hold them. Here's a picture of the grates I used, the bag of "glowing embers" and a picture of the fireplace with the lights on. And one of the lights off and the fireplace on! Very pretty and gives that special glow of a burning fire. No sound or smell, but I am still working on that. And the "Glowing Embers" still has 3/4 of the bag left!

This is a picture of the cut up grates and you can see the "glowing embers" placed in the grates over the top of the gas burners.

And this picture is of the fireplace minus lights, burning. Looks much more realistic and the flames flicker through the "glowing embers", and like I said before, I still have about 3/4 of a bag left. Just to give you and idea of the size of my fireplace, its about 21" wide and was a coal fireplace, so it required a smaller burner and log set, which was installed last winter. Its very pretty and throws off a lot of heat, when turned up, and also has a thermostat (just found that out!). For the $10 bucks invested in making this look more realistic, I'm pretty happy. If I could have found the rock wool, I would have tried it, but since I do not have any lying around, I can't compare them! It did take a while to place the "glowing embers" and make sure the flames came through just right, but well worth the time spent! Hope this helps others out!

Anyone notice any odors with new rock wool?