I have my hopes up again... Looking for recommendations

For reasons that I will unpack in another thread, concerning the finances needed for a fireplace insert, I am in a place again where I am allowing my hopes to get up about improving our wood heat situation.

I need your recommendations for the following factors.

Our fireplace is in a large loving room which is part of a 1400 square foot main level.

We would like to see if we can have an insert that throws enough heat for 1800 plus square feet so we have head room.

We would also like the largest glass viewing area possible.

Ideally we would like a flush mount insert. Power outages are a minor concern but we have options for powering the blower on our acreage

Today's strongest contender is the Enviro Cabello in either the 1200 or the 1700 model.

Or local stove shop should be out by the end of the week to do an assessment and measurement to see what we can be looking at for an insert.

One of the deal breakers for my wife is the size of the viewing area on the insert. If the Blaze King Briarwood had a higher BTU rating it would be a leading contender due to its large glass door.

I know that my personal goal is the heating capacity while for my bride it is about bridging the look and feel with my plans for the function.

This has been an ongoing saga that took a hopeful bounce this evening.

I like the details on the Buck insert you suggest. What I am going to do next, is to have our stove shop rep come out to the house and give him som ownership of the situation.

If the circumstances that are now giving me some hope are actually changing then our potential install could open the door to our local stove shop selling a pile of new installs using out situation as a pilot project or as a template.

I will try to update the other thread about this process and link to it later today.

Now I am in the overthinking stage. I have the paperwork in hand for the dollars and cents part of the process but in doing the math I am now thinking that I should be looking at a zero clearance installation due to the surcharge we are currently paying on our insurance.

If we can kill two birds with one stone by going to a large zero clearance fireplace that will heat our entire home plus removing 15 percent of or insurance costs ( which are quite high due to our owning a cedar log home ) then maybe ai should go that direction.

Sooooo many variables.

It's looking more and more like we will be "stove shopping" this coming week.

We have the dollars committed and it looks very much like the type of wood heat appliance will be a zero clearance unit of one sort or another.

The BIS Ultra is an early front runner although I would like the heating headroom that the BIS tradition appears to offer.

The plan right now is to have the stove shop owner come out as early in the week as we can schedule him to take some photos, measurements and to verify that our chimney liner will work for the installation.

What blows me away, is the difference in insurance costs we appear to be poised to experience if we move from a stove to a zero clearance fireplace.

That looks likes it would work in our open fireplace on our main level.

It looks like we will be moving towards installing a zero clearance unit in our basement alcove as a next step though.

The big issue for us is moving away from a significant surcharge on our insurance.

Good to know that PE has zero clearance units.

I will check out the data on them to see if they will work in our potential install space.

I will also check with our dealer to see what we are looking at for availability.

As far as insurance companies go, trust me we have been through that battle.

Having the combination of a log house and working to heat it with a wood stove leaves us very limited in our options for which companies we could get coverage from.

By going to a zero clearance unit we will have several companies willing to quote.

The battles I have had in this matter are lengthy and I have learned more than I wanted to.

We spoke with our stove shop yesterday and I have sent the installer a raft of photos with measurements.

Narrowing things down to the BIS Ultra or the Enerzone 2.5.

Leaning heavily towards the Enerzone for the combination of price point, simplicity of installation and the fact that the firebox uses normal firebricks.

That last point might be a bit simplistic on my part but I know that there will be several different household members loading the fireplace so the risk of jamming wood into an expensive refractory panel is quite a possibility.

As an aside it is driving me crazy now that we are likely moving ahead with the install that we should have gone with 8 years ago. Doing some rough math on the combination of heating costs and insurance surcharges I could have saved close to 7000 dollars of our hard earned cash flow over the past 8 years which would have paid for almost two installs.

But.... What do wise folks say? The best time to plant an Oak tree is 30 years ago.... The next best time is the first day that the ground is warm enough to plant.

While our kids are excited about counting the days until Christmas I am revved up about the potential of a wood heat installation that will increase our ability to heat our entire house with wood and cut our insurance bill substantially.

Now frustration is setting in again. The challenges with our project are putting me right into the nuthouse with very corner we turn causing more costs and more frustrations.

Now we may be looking at having to pull the dura vent liner out of the masonry chimney and run an actual chimney down through the ten inch masonry liner.

Now we a finding that a large woodstove might be a better option than a zero clearance fireplace.

So many frustrations at this stage I am just about ready to give up on my hopes of reducing my heating costs by moving up to a larger EPA stove.

We have two flues in a large masonry chimney structure.

One is an open fireplace on main level.

The other is lined with duravent insulated liner and connected to a small non EPA Stove.

The main reasons we abandoned the idea of an insert on the main level were two fold.

Insurance costs, which we are currently paying, and the main reason is esthetics.

We have a beautiful log home with a large open fireplace and we don't want to lose the look and feel.

I am going to the stove shop today to take another look at this process because it is driving me to distraction

So every time we turn a corner there seem to be more questions than answers.

In the process we are now back at considering an insert for the main level fireplace.

I am wondering if anyone out there has looked at or has purchased this unit.....

http://www.napoleonfireplaces.com/products/epi3t-epi3c-wood-burning-insert/

The brown enamel front would suit the room nicely, firebox is a bit small but we would continue to use the small woodstove in the basement as well so we would have more than enough BTU capacity.

The viewing glass seems to be big enough at 300 square inches that it would afford a viewing area my Bride could live with ( she still loves the open fireplace look, sound and smell).

Thank God for hearth.com where I can vent, explore and figure things out.

The 300 square inches of viewing coupled with our local stove shop stocking and servicing the Napoleon brand makes the new insert appealing to consider.

I should clarify that we have just under 2800 square feet of living space, basement and main level, and we have a wood stove already in the basement so if we go with an insert heating 1380 square feet that is quite open.

I am sure that there are forum members who are tired of hearing of our journey over the past few years with battles with insurance companies and trying to get to the point of heating mostly with wood.

Short version....

Money is tight.

Masonry chimney is built with two flues.

One to the open fireplace, one to the lower level.

Trying to please insurance companies, WETT techs, and maintain the esthetics of our log home on the main level.

Basement is ICF construction finished with drywall.

Dreaming and figuring and scheming as we work to get to the point where we don't need to utilize the electricity to do more than move the wood heated air around the house.

With the esthetics in mind any of the inserts we have looked at over 2 cubic feet would require that we cut the bricks away on our fireplace.

I know that we will have to cut out the damper and the "vent tubes" to install am insert but we hope to not damage the brick when and if we install an insert.

I am ready to quit any and all attempts to heat my home with wood today.

Yet another road block was put in my way today, rather, it was made clear that the existing set up we have with a masonry chimney (long story-read my many threads about our frustrating journey) is not a viable option for upgrading our wood heating capacity.

We will continue to utilize our current set up that does not nearly provide the heat that we need.

Today is not a fun moment for me.

Kind of ready to resign myself to the world of being forever reliant on the corporation for heat.

I will work to post photos of the chimney structure to put this out as a "project" for everyone on Hearth to puzzle through with me.

Long story short right now is we are going to take a break for a week or two from trying to sort out potential installations of wood heat upgrades.

In simple terms the installers we feel we need to work with are not going to work with us to utilize our existing chimney structure in any way moving forward.

The installer's expert was in our home yesterday and directly told me that he would not utilize our masonry chimney and that we would need to completely revamp any and all plans.

So, this is why I vented yesterday.

Not going to make any decisions today on the process.