Help with choosing a high efficiency woodburning fireplace - Quadrafire 7100 - and other questions s

We have struggled heating one portion of our home for the last 4 years. The home is a 70 year old colonial. We live in Eastern Ma and can have long cold winters. The majority of our home is insulated with a basement underneath, and feels fairly warm (we keep it at 63, so not sure that this term really applies On the right side of our home (if you are looking at it), the garage was converted to a family room. It has pitched high ceilings with a ceiling fan. There is a fireplace insert in this room. In addition, it has a bench out front, and a large rectangle space underneath the bench (supposedly for firewood). Well, the previous owners did the conversion. It is unlikely that any insulation was used on the floor or walls. This room is frigid. Despite being its own heating zone (separate from the one that covers the rest of the house), the floor is like an icebox and there is a draft so large, we have put wood covers over the fireplace and "wood" area underneath, for 6 months of the year.

We have decided to replace the fireplace in there with a high efficiency wood fireplace, since we need to try to keep this room from sucking out all the heat. We have done research and have pretty much decided on the Quadrafire 7100. Our concern is that it is extremely pricy (today we were in the fireplace store and were quoted $7600 plus tax for the unit, installation, and chimney piping equal to 2 stories- not sure we need all this piping - but piping quote alone was $1100). This is not including the demo of old unit and finishing when it is done (hoping to do this ourselves). In addition, this room is located at the edge of the home. It has high vaulted ceilings, and we are concerned that heat produced by the unit will get trapped here, and not really heat the transition portion of the home as well, which can be cold, especially the floor. We have a few questions for those of you familiar with this unit or other similar units. We do like the "fireplace" like look of the quadrafire (you can see the fire in the glass) and the high efficiency / burn time, so we can leave it burning through the night and while we are at work.


Questions are:


1. We asked the saleman about the ducting for the unit, and if we could duct into the 1/2 wall island area(shown in the picture), aiming toward the floor (there is an open vent there for the water radiator - boiler). He seemed to think that the ducts dont work, and wouldn't work for our situation. Does anyone have experience that would suggest otherwise?

2. Are there other units we should be considering. We don't want to spend this much money and be disappointed. We don't have lots of cash. We think this would make a big difference in our oil bill and the feeling in the house, but if we spend this money and are disappointed, that would be dreadful. Are there others that could offer the same kinds of features we are looking for, that we have not thought about.

3. We will be ripping out the old fireplace, dry wall, etc. We will also be taking out the bench and hole below. We will insulate the wall (we suspect there is none) and put a hearth at the floor level instead. Should we have concerns about this process, since there is currently a fireplace there? Could we reuse any of the chimney components for our current fireplace for the quadrafire.

4. How far will we need to mount the tv above the quadrafire in order to safely run the tv (afraid of the heat output).

5. Is installation feasible for handy, but not technical do-it-yourselfers?

I really appreciate any input. I am attaching two pictures to describe the space we are discussing.

Thanks again.

Jacey

Thanks so much for the info on the Quadrafire. We really like it in comparison with others, just want to make sure it makes sense for us. I should also say that our colonial is 2000 sq. ft. We have a ceiling fan in the room where we are putting in the unit. I can not say that it is well insulated, but the fireplace wall will be. It is the only part of our house that is a slab, so that room is cold. We have an area rug in there, but the floor is cold. Do you think the ceiling fan is enough to get the heat down and over or do we need to think of something else to get the heat over (to hit the main part of the house and hopefully make its way slightly upstairs? Any ideas would be welcomed.

Thanks again. Loving this sight and all the info.

Jacey

Inferno-

Thanks so much for your reply. I really appreciate all the info. Your answers were my suspicions as well. I want this done right, just want it to make sense in the budget. Will call some contractors tomorrow and see what we find. I do think we can open up the wall, but not sure about the rest.

We may still attempt the TV in this room, but feel we have about 6 inches higher if needed to protect it. Looking for a rustic mantel right now (pretty heavy duty raw wood type). Maybe that will help.

I totally agree with the mason work. My concern is that we are not ripping up the floor (all hardwoods) or drywall on the other two sides. If those walls or floor are not insulated to code are we doing this for naught? I guess I should go to town hall and see what kinds of permits were pulled for the job and see if there are any notes on inspection. Thanks for that info. This is our first house (and last) and we were late to the game as we were city dwellers (although we managed an apartment building in Boston and had handy work experience, no real building experience).

Do you have any suggestions on circulating the air so it does not get trapped in this room? It is pitched and at the far right of our home, in a center entrance colonial (stairs to upstairs at the center entrance. attaching picture of house with room here. We do have a ceiling fan. Is that sufficient?

Also, I am attaching a picture from the outside back where the current chimney is. It is bottom of the barrel, no frills. Not sure what kind of recs are made in the install manual on the 7100 yet, but hoping that is will work with this kind of a room.

Thanks again for your info.

Jacey

Thanks again inferno. I am going to town hall tomorrow to check out the permit history etc. That will at least give me some info into the insulation. Also called a couple of contractors to get some quotes. Think we will leave this one to the professionals. Looking forward to a warm winter 2012.

Thanks for all the info.

Jacey

Well, we finally got the project done, and it is amazing. We are so happy with the fireplace (Quadrafire 7100), and so happy that we had a contractor do the install. There was absolutely no insulation behind the old fireplace, as we suspected. We have stoked up the fireplace twice with wonderful results. We do need to learn how to maintain a fire overnight. How many logs should we load. Full? How long should I reasonably expect it to go. I would like to have some embers after 7 / 8 hours so I can restart in the morning, and again, fill before we leave for work. We are going to start using this as a primary heat source. Any info would be helpful. It does work well with the logs we have used, however not going for long enough. Sunday, we tried to get it to go overnight, but was cold by morning (7 hours later).

Thanks everyone, we are so excited to have it done and are going for another try tonight to make it through the night and have enough coals to restart before work in the morning. I am having a little trouble with smoke coming into the house when I light it. Do I need to warm the flue and how exactly do I need to do that (I used to do that with the fireplace we had before, but that was not a wood stove so not sure how this is done. I think that some of the wood I started with today was damp so a little smokier than usual, but this was the second time, on a cooler day that the smoke didn't go up, rather went into the house. Any ideas.

Here is a bigger picture of the fireplace. We picked out the mantle from a saw mill. Actually picked out a tree and told them what part we wanted. They hung it on the wall with the bark still on. It is a beast, but awesome!

Thanks again.

Jacey

Yeah We had plenty of coals this morning! Fire is blazing now and ready for the day. We will see how we get through today, it is our longest, away day.

We have about 16 ft. of flue from stove to top of chimney. As you see in the picture of the old one, it is half exposed, as this is a one story room, and it has a pitched roof and skylights, so it needs to be up pretty high.

Thanks all.

Jacey

We are on day three of the same coals. Working like a charm. A little too hot actually, but I think we will be happy when it is in the middle of the bitter winter. Heat is even making it upstairs.

Loving it After a year and a half reading posts and dreaming on this website, so happy to finally be a proud owner (I know a little too over the top with the pictures, just excited).

Thanks for indulging my excitement!!

Jacey

Not an issue at all with the TV. We do have a large mantel though, so maybe that protects it a bit (no heat on top of the mantel). We have been running the wood stove fairly constantly, getting very hot in there, but no issue at all. I can not foresee it melting or anything. I can see the concern when not following the directed allotment of space that they recommend between the stove and the mantel, but we were exact in our measurements and like I said the mantel is wider than the typical one, so maybe that helps.