We just bought a house with a vent less gas fireplace. My husband just recently turned it on and I can continually smell gas coming from it . He says he can't smell anything and that what I am smelling is normal. I get excessive headaches and upset stomach and also diarrhea from this. We have small children in our house so I made him turn it off. He is not happy about it, and says it is all in my head, so I was wondering is the smell normal for a vent less fireplace and would the gas smell cause me to have these symptoms?

I'm glad he agreed to shut it off for now.

Tell your husband it really won't cost that much to have someone come in and do a leak test and measure CO levels. Or make a few calls and get a price from someone to check on this. The fire department or gas company might even come by and check it for free.

If your husband is a good guy I'm sure he'd never be able to live with himself if he thought he was inadvertently poisioning his family.

I would also make sure the unit is working correctly because there is an oxygen level sensor and maybe a CO level sensor. I might opt for your own CO sensor plugged in nearby just in case something fails on the unit.

I'm not a big fan of ventless just like here (http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/buying/tools/la-fi-inspect2-2008nov02,0,5594834.story). Just because its ventless doesn't mean there are no residual emissions, but they are considered acceptable levels according to the government.