I have found so much useful information on this site that I feel compelled to provide some information that may help someone out there looking to purchase a fireplace insert. What I'm going to do is tell you about the install of my Quad 5100i and how I feel about it compared to what I replaced Buck 28000
Install: Masonry chimney, center of house, 27' tall.
Purchase: I worked with a local dealer since that seems to be the only place to buy a Quadrafire. I had purchased a Castille Pellet stove in 2006 from the same people and was less than happy with the service but loved the product. No other dealers were close and as a repeat customer I got a good deal and had a 300 dollar coupon on top of that...so price wise it was great. I also purchased the liner kit from Chimney Liner depot and materials to fab a blockoff plate from Home Depot.
Arrival Liner: The liner system came in two big boxes. 30' of liner and insulation and all that jazz. Packed well. Contents all there. No big deal..but if you don't have a garage or double doors to your house, it won't fit through. I have both so no worries there.
Arrival Stove: This angered me a bit in that the stove arrived and was sitting in the warehouse for a week and the company never called me to say it was in. This is what I remember about the last time I purchased from this outfit. I drove to the warehouse to pick it up and it fit on my trailer with literally 1 inch to spare widthwise. Great forklift driver! It was packed very well and secure on a pallet with 2x4 framing on top with heavy cardboard. Everything was packed nicely.
Install Liner: The first thing I did was install the appliance connector. I smeared some furnace cement around the liner end and the mating connector and assembled it. This had a stainless clamp to secure the liner to the connector. Then I smeared furnace cement around the outside to seal it all up. I also then took my heat gun and cured it. Then I took the appliance connector and connected that to the furnace connector on the unit. This connector connects with 4 bolts..so I used 4 stainless bolts instead of self tapping screws. Same deal...furnace cement inside and out and then cured with heat gun. That was during the week. After I was happy that the cement was cured, I took the whole thing outside and unrolled it and assembled the insulation portion. This took about 2 hours to do start to finish. I was very UNSATISFIED with this as I did not have enough tape, steel mesh, or locking wire. Fortunately I had spare tape and that posed not to be an issue, but I was about 10' short on the steel mesh and locking wire. Everything else went together and slid down the chimney without any problem.
Install/Fab block off plate: I went to home depot and purchased a 36" piece of steel, cut it to fit and then welded on some additional pieces for the angles to mate evenly in the box. I then took my 4' angle grinder and cut out the damper in the middle so the liner could go through. After that I drilled and tapped into the corners of the damper and lined up the blockoff plate to fit...and bolted it right in. After I pulled the liner through, I sealed the whole thing all the way around with high temp silicon and stuffed the center with extra insulation. There is absolutely no air going out through the chimney.
Install the Insert: This was quite simple actually. Loaded it on a hand truck from the trailer, right into the house and right into the fireplace. Two people and no struggle. Slide into place on 2x4's and that was that. Connected the liner and made sure all the bricks and baffles were correct. Went back on the roof and finished the connection for the cap. Done deal.
First burn: I took it up to about 500 on the first burn, about a 4 hour trip. Man this thing stinks...I remember the pellet stove doing the same thing. After I was satisfied that there were no leaks and everything functioned as it should, I put the surround on and fired it up really well. Took to about 750. Seems to like 700 best.
Overnight: I burn nearly all maple or oak...I'm fortunate to have a good supply on my property and people around here constantly give it away...So I pick it up and stack it for a year and then its usually ready for me. My wood quality is very good. I loaded this sucker up with about 10 splits at 10pm and watched it till about 12 to make sure it wouldn't overfire...it was really close...so I'll dial that back. but I had a full bed of coals at 7am and just tossed 3 splits on in the morning and it fired right up.
Continual: I feed it about 4 splits every 3-4 hours when I'm at home to watch it with the air intake at 50% open. When I'm going out, I'll double it and close the air intake.
How I feel vs the Buck 28000 it replaced: For safety sake, I am way more comfortable since I had a slammer install. For a wood usage, I'm using considerably less wood. For heat output, I'm not convinced I'm making more heat. For smoke and creosote, I am burning clean where my smoke dragon was pretty nasty.
Overall impressions/changes: I wanted the biggest insert I could purchase and fit in my existing fireplace...this was it. Fit and finish are superior. This is a quality machine. If I have to change one thing, which I will do, is I'm going to take the surround off and drill a pattern into it at the top and sides where it is closest to the unit. I think a lot of heat is trapped back there and drilling this out will allow that to radiate out. I burned it without the surround and it definitely produced more heat, so this makes good sense to me.
Install: Masonry chimney, center of house, 27' tall.
Purchase: I worked with a local dealer since that seems to be the only place to buy a Quadrafire. I had purchased a Castille Pellet stove in 2006 from the same people and was less than happy with the service but loved the product. No other dealers were close and as a repeat customer I got a good deal and had a 300 dollar coupon on top of that...so price wise it was great. I also purchased the liner kit from Chimney Liner depot and materials to fab a blockoff plate from Home Depot.
Arrival Liner: The liner system came in two big boxes. 30' of liner and insulation and all that jazz. Packed well. Contents all there. No big deal..but if you don't have a garage or double doors to your house, it won't fit through. I have both so no worries there.
Arrival Stove: This angered me a bit in that the stove arrived and was sitting in the warehouse for a week and the company never called me to say it was in. This is what I remember about the last time I purchased from this outfit. I drove to the warehouse to pick it up and it fit on my trailer with literally 1 inch to spare widthwise. Great forklift driver! It was packed very well and secure on a pallet with 2x4 framing on top with heavy cardboard. Everything was packed nicely.
Install Liner: The first thing I did was install the appliance connector. I smeared some furnace cement around the liner end and the mating connector and assembled it. This had a stainless clamp to secure the liner to the connector. Then I smeared furnace cement around the outside to seal it all up. I also then took my heat gun and cured it. Then I took the appliance connector and connected that to the furnace connector on the unit. This connector connects with 4 bolts..so I used 4 stainless bolts instead of self tapping screws. Same deal...furnace cement inside and out and then cured with heat gun. That was during the week. After I was happy that the cement was cured, I took the whole thing outside and unrolled it and assembled the insulation portion. This took about 2 hours to do start to finish. I was very UNSATISFIED with this as I did not have enough tape, steel mesh, or locking wire. Fortunately I had spare tape and that posed not to be an issue, but I was about 10' short on the steel mesh and locking wire. Everything else went together and slid down the chimney without any problem.
Install/Fab block off plate: I went to home depot and purchased a 36" piece of steel, cut it to fit and then welded on some additional pieces for the angles to mate evenly in the box. I then took my 4' angle grinder and cut out the damper in the middle so the liner could go through. After that I drilled and tapped into the corners of the damper and lined up the blockoff plate to fit...and bolted it right in. After I pulled the liner through, I sealed the whole thing all the way around with high temp silicon and stuffed the center with extra insulation. There is absolutely no air going out through the chimney.
Install the Insert: This was quite simple actually. Loaded it on a hand truck from the trailer, right into the house and right into the fireplace. Two people and no struggle. Slide into place on 2x4's and that was that. Connected the liner and made sure all the bricks and baffles were correct. Went back on the roof and finished the connection for the cap. Done deal.
First burn: I took it up to about 500 on the first burn, about a 4 hour trip. Man this thing stinks...I remember the pellet stove doing the same thing. After I was satisfied that there were no leaks and everything functioned as it should, I put the surround on and fired it up really well. Took to about 750. Seems to like 700 best.
Overnight: I burn nearly all maple or oak...I'm fortunate to have a good supply on my property and people around here constantly give it away...So I pick it up and stack it for a year and then its usually ready for me. My wood quality is very good. I loaded this sucker up with about 10 splits at 10pm and watched it till about 12 to make sure it wouldn't overfire...it was really close...so I'll dial that back. but I had a full bed of coals at 7am and just tossed 3 splits on in the morning and it fired right up.
Continual: I feed it about 4 splits every 3-4 hours when I'm at home to watch it with the air intake at 50% open. When I'm going out, I'll double it and close the air intake.
How I feel vs the Buck 28000 it replaced: For safety sake, I am way more comfortable since I had a slammer install. For a wood usage, I'm using considerably less wood. For heat output, I'm not convinced I'm making more heat. For smoke and creosote, I am burning clean where my smoke dragon was pretty nasty.
Overall impressions/changes: I wanted the biggest insert I could purchase and fit in my existing fireplace...this was it. Fit and finish are superior. This is a quality machine. If I have to change one thing, which I will do, is I'm going to take the surround off and drill a pattern into it at the top and sides where it is closest to the unit. I think a lot of heat is trapped back there and drilling this out will allow that to radiate out. I burned it without the surround and it definitely produced more heat, so this makes good sense to me.