I have one and I'm thrilled with it! I got mine for $1399 with shipping. I have a small house (about 800 sq ft) that is poorly insulated. Last winter it cost me about $2000 to heat with fuel oil. I didn't want to keep that rate up, so I looked into this. A friend had one and he heats his office with it, so I decided to get one.
Here we are, almost at the end of the heating season, and I have not used 1 ton of pellets this entire winter. Granted, it's not been a cold winter, but for $190 for a ton of pellets and the cost of the stove, and the minimal fuel oil I've used (about 50 gallons), I've saved $200+ this winter alone. My stove has paid for itself in one season (plus a tax credit!)! It's done a great job of keeping the room it's in very warm, and it will do an ok job of heating my kitchen (the next room over). It doesn't heat my bedrooms and bathroom, but utilizing a small ceramic heater in the bathroom and flannel sheets on the bed, i've been able to stay nice and warm this winter.
It doesn't use a lot of electricity, either. My highest electric bill this winter has been $50.
Even on the coldest days, it managed to get the inside temperature up around 72. There have been plenty of times when I'll run it at night, then shut it off for a few hours in the late morning/early afternoon because it's too warm in the house for my liking. Shutting it down for 2 hours gives it plenty of time to cool to clean it out, too.
The hopper holds about 20 pounds of pellets, and you can get about 10-12 hours of burn before you have to add pellets. I clean the burn pot out every day, which is not really a big deal for me. I figure you'd have to do more cleaning of a fireplace... I've been able to get as much as 30 hours out of a bag of pellets.
It's really well insulated, and all the sides are cool to the touch. Obviously, you're dealing with fire here, so you need to be careful, and I upped my insurance, just in case. But so far, no troubles whatsoever and I couldn't be more pleased. I can't believe the money I've saved with this thing. Next season I should be able to not pay the oil man $1500+. I can think of a lot of things I would rather do with that kind of cabbage left over...
I bought two tons of pellets at the beginning of the season, and as of today, I'm on bag 45. I'll probably use about 5-10 more bags until it's warm enough to shut it down for the spring/summer, and I've already pre-ordered two more tons of pellets (we go in with a group of guys that buys a truckload - got them for $175/ton!). So I now have a stove that's paid for, and about three more tons of pellets that are paid for. So I should have my heating bill covered for at least two years!
This unit isn't for everyone. It's a really effective space heater, or great if you have a small house and space to store pellets where they're dry. You're going to be babysitting this thing twice a day. As with anything, you need to maintain it, which means cleaning it out regularly and not letting the burn pot get too full with ash and cleaning out the spark arrester monthly. For future models, it would be great if they had a thermostat on it and I would also like to see adjustable louvers to direct the flow of heat. As it is now, there are 5 settings on it (I've only burned it on the two lowest settings all winter) and right now the stationary louvers direct the heat upwards.
For me, it fits my lifestyle just fine and it's saved me a ton of money. I'm going to look into more insulation for next year, and possibly even a second unit. I'm going to check with the local places that sell them to see if they have any clearance specials on them. If I can pick up a second one for 1000-1200, it will be worth it. One place I know was selling them for $1499 plus he'd give you a ton of pellets (and let you store them at his facility - get them as you need them) - not a bad deal. I'll see if he's going to run a clearance on them...
By the way, from what I can tell, they've overproduced pellets this season, so it looks like the manufacturers are going to try to get rid of their inventory. Our supplier got the price down to $145/ton (with freight on the truck, we're at $175/ton). So if you have space and cash, stock up now.
I'm ready for spring to arrive, but I'm not going to be complaining about my heating bill next winter. My fuel oil supplier is probably going to take me off his Christmas card list, though!
For comparison purposes, I used, on average, 3.5 gallons of fuel oil/day last winter. At $3.59/gallon, that's $12.50/day. Using a bag of pellets/day was $3.80. And most days, I didn't use a bag of pellets. So this stove is saving me about 70%. That's huge.