Century Fire Place Insert

Was curious also. Did you buy it yet Jutt ?

I got one, works great. Very happy with it. Small firebox would be the biggest downside, but that's not the stove's fault. Also, despite what the manual says:
1) There is no intake for an OAK.
2) The fan is not thermostatically controlled. Although SBI customer service was great--I complained, and they mailed me a thermodisk/wiring to install on the blower.

thanks for the info Nola.. The price really has me on this one.. hard to pass up. Our home is a ranch with about 1500sf..

This insert would do a nice job of providing heat you think?

Also forgive me but what do you mean by OAK ?

dunno. my house is 1500 sf as well, fairly open floor plan. Has some insulation, but could still use some sealing and is uninsulated in the crawl space. Couple of weeks ago I was able to heat when the weather was in the 20's, but it was a struggle; needed to keep it cranking, reload every 3-4 hours. If I could, I would have gone bigger. Ohio gets colder than virginia. OAK= outside air kit. Seems that unless your house is super tight, you won't need one.

Great pics. Keep us informed. I think I will be installing my own now too. Don't know who too trust around here and not wanting to pay too much for a install.

I just got my cw2500 in a few days ago. I also installed it myself without too much grief.

Of course, like any project there were some hiccups. My 5.5" uninsulated liner *just* went through a misaligned flue tile after I chipped away a bit of the edge. And I thought cutting an inch out of the damper would be no problem with a recip saw but 6 blades later I gave up and smashed out the whole damper assembly!

Jutt, I hope you have the liner back far enough to get the stove in deep enough. I found it to be a very tight fit between the back fireplace bricks and the stove due to the 45 degree outlet.

So far I've been very happy with the insert although the fan is not thermostatically controlled as someone else pointed out. I think I'll be giving SBI a call about that also.

I'd be interested to hear how you guys like the stove and what you think of it's performance. This is my first wood stove so I have nothing to compare with. What's the longest burn you can achieve? How long before you are able to dial down the air all the way? Any tips in general?

Nice . Glad things are working out for you. You have sold me on this stove and self install for sure!

Jutt77 said:

Man, this stove rocks!

Click to expand...

While I don't have any previous burning experience I would say the same thing.

Last weekend I tried an experiment and turned off the furnace and cranked up the stove for a whole day. It kept the whole house warm and my house is over 3000 square feet. Mind you it was really mild out that day at around +5C and the basement where the stove is located wasn't really habitable at 25C.

My intention for the stove was to heat the 1000 square feet of the basement nights and weekends and it works perfectly. In fact it works a little too well, I have to burn small loads and let it cool a bit between loads or the basement gets way too hot. If I had put this stove on my main floor I'm sure it could easily heat the top two floors if I kept it well fed.

Nice SS installl. Quick question- why and how long are those tap cons in the firebrick just below the block off plate? If they are long or penetrate the brick they could transmit the heat behind the firebrick. Sorry to sound paranoid.

I have a CW2500 that I use for supplemental heating in our two story (actually 3 story if you include the walkout basement) colonial in NE Illinois.

Picked it up in fall 2009 as a discontinued model at Menards home improvement store for around $520 (including tax).

I've been pretty happy with it. It heats the main floor well eventhough the house is a bit drafty at times. The only two downsides are
a) the small fire box... need to reload about every 3 hours... that's not a problem though since the insert is mostly for ambience and secondary heat. (If looking for continous flames and secondary burn for ambience, then need to load every 90-120 minutes).
b) manual fan which also can be a bit noisy when it starts to rattle...usually a tap onthe blower vent calms the rattling down.

CAUTION... this being our second winter (we burn maybe 1x-2x per week) with the CW2500 I learned (almost the hard way not to overfire).
The CW2500 can get out of control with the air on if the fire box is packed.

last weekend I packed the insert with seasoned dry oak splits the tightest I ever REpacked it. I left the air open for 30 minutes and the fan off so the 200 degree stove would get started.... imagine my surprise when I came back and saw the thermometer at 700 degrees ... thermo was in the upper right corner of the front of the stove.

I opened the door at first (probably not a good idea) to listen for whooshing sounds (and heard it), then I quickly shut everything down (door and the air) and turned the blower on full.

LESSON LEARNED: Don't leave the CW25000 unattended if you have the air open (unless you are down to only coals and are NOT repacking... then you can leave the air open)
The CW2500 is a bit leaky and will burn nicely with air closed off all the way... this is the way I run it after the splits take.

P.S. A couple years ago, there were a number of posts on this stove having welding problems -- welds holding the inner box to the outer box were failing.

My thoughts are that if you don't over fire it (like I just accidentally did for the first time), you are probably OK.

Also, I placed some ceramic tile underneath the inner box (not along the outer perimeter which is really the outer box) to help support the inner box.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/7220/

CJ-8_Jim said:

imagine my surprise when I came back and saw the thermometer at 700 degrees.

Click to expand...

Stove manual states not to exceed 840F. While 700 is probably too hot to run regularly it's not really on overfire.

CJ-8_Jim said:

P.S. A couple years ago, there were a number of posts on this stove having welding problems -- welds holding the inner box to the outer box were failing./

Click to expand...

I read around here somewhere that they changed the design of the stove so that the inner box is no longer supported by those welds that were failing. Someone else may know the details.

Scottydont said:

CJ-8_Jim said:

imagine my surprise when I came back and saw the thermometer at 700 degrees.

Click to expand...

Stove manual states not to exceed 840F. While 700 is probably too hot to run regularly it's not really on overfire.

Click to expand...

The 700 reading I had was on the outside of the front of the stove... I imagine the exhaust gases at the stove's flue collar where 200+ degrees more (e.g., 900+)

Scottydont said:

CJ-8_Jim said:

P.S. A couple years ago, there were a number of posts on this stove having welding problems -- welds holding the inner box to the outer box were failing./

Click to expand...

I read around here somewhere that they changed the design of the stove so that the inner box is no longer supported by those welds that were failing. Someone else may know the details.

Click to expand...

Good to know... I guess one could easily poke their head around and look for where the welds are (and how much is welded). Tough to tell visually on a painted weld if there was sufficient penetration, but maybe.