new member, new house, new insert...

I've poked around the site for the last few weeks and found lots to read. Very cool forum here. I'm no stranger to wood heat and have spent most of my life feeding my dad's old Avalon and even older Orley. I've still found many new ideas here on the forum.
I recently bought my first house and getting an insert for the fireplace was one of my first priorities.
I turned this...





















Into this...


I went with a Lopi Republic 1250 for my little house.
As a house warming gift, one of my friends dropped off a load of hemlock rounds from a tree that fell on his property. I'll also have a good supply from my own property as it's mostly wooded with a mix of alder and maple, and a little fir and hemlock too. To burn this season, I'll be "borrowing" seasoned wood from my dad that came from my uncle's property in the spring of 2010.
My dad recently retired and has been a huge help getting my house set up. One of the many things he's done for me, was to build a very nice wood rack that will hold about two cords. He also hooked me up with free materials to build another one out back.
I'm curious how this insert and it's location in the house will work for my heating needs as the weather gets colder.

Thanks guys. My house is only 1100 square feet and shaped like a rectangle. The stove is located at the south end of the house in a narrow room behind the garage. The door to the left in the first pic goes to the garage, there's a slider on the right that goes out to the deck. To put it simply, the garage and hearth room are on the south end, kitchen and living room in the middle, and bedrooms at the north end. I'd put a wood stove in the living room if I were designing this house from scratch, but I'm going with what's here.
Just from the limited burning I've done, the living room and kitchen warm up pretty well, but the heat stops at the hall. I'll be getting a fan and trying it at different locations to move air down the hallway. I have electric heat and just heating half of the house will make a good dent in my bill. Temps here in the winter will drop below freezing from time to time but not usually anything too severe.
I haven't cranked it up yet. I did the break-in burning advised by the installers and am gradually building up to hotter fires. The previous owner of the house left a crib of semi-punky wood that I'm burning. I want to get rid of it and it doesn't burn very hot, which is good at this point.
In the process of unpacking and outfitting my house I've added a few of things near the stove.


I really enjoy looking through the wood shed forum and seeing what people get for wood and how they store it. I was raised by a firewood junky. Some people notice fancy cars or big houses when driving around, my dad and I notice the houses with nice wood sheds.

My Oslo heats my home said:

Jamie, just out of curiosity...what is your hearth made out of?

Click to expand...

I'm not really sure what it's called. Maybe exposed aggregate?

Neat that someone noticed my kindling bucket. It's an old crock that was my grandfather's.