BIS Ultra. Suitable for 1400 sq ft one level home

[Xterrer]

I am rebuilding after a house fire (not wood heat related) and am considering a zero clearance fireplace. Our experience has always been with stand alone wood stoves. I have pricing on the BIS Ultra that is attractive and we are strongly considering this unit.

The fireplace will be in the living room backing on a wall shared by the bathroom. In the attached floor plan the fireplace will go where it says "wall mount tv. The wood stove will not be there.
The main living area is all forward of the insert and the living room is open concept to the kitechen. The bathroom and 3 bedroom are down a hallway to the right of where the insert is located. I will post a jpg of the floor plans when I get to the office again

My concern is if this will be sufficient as the main heat source for our home? We will have electric as backup but prefer not to use this. wood will be seasoned from our 50 acre property covered with maples.

Location Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Where winter is winter...

Great forums and some very knowledgable members, thanks in advance.

 

[begreen]

Welcome Xterrer. The floorplan picture will help. The BIS Ultra is a zero-clearance fireplace, not an insert. An insert goes into an existing fireplace.

It should do ok for heating a 1400 sq ft home.

 

[Xterrer]

Thanks begreen, I have edited my orgional post and aslo added an image of my floorplan.

I forgot to mention that the other fireplace I was looking at was the RSF Opel 2. Wondering if any site members can shed light on either units as sutiable options.

Thanks

 

[kingquad]

Why are you switching from a woodstove? Just wondering.

Whatever ZC unit you get, I'd look for one that is approved to plumb into your forced air furnace system. Should help distribute the heat nicely I would think. Plenty of good units out there. I've been looking at some of these myself. The RSF units are nice, but I have no dealer in my area. They also can only be installed with Excel ICC chimney pipe, which is high quality, but expensive.

Some other brands to check out are
Fireplace Xtraordinair
Kozy Heat
Quadrafire/Heat n Glo
Valcourt

Valcourt makes one the same size as the BIS unit your looking at. I think it's priced pretty well too. Good luck with your search. Let us know what you get.

 

[Xterrer]

The switch to a fireplace is to get the aesthetic appeal and also the heat comfort that we are use to with our previous wood stove. I would prefer not to get into running ducts around if this I don't have to. Like most people are living area is the important area as the bedrooms are best keep cool for sleeping.

We haven't completely decided yet as we are unsure that the fireplace will provide the same level of comfort our former wood stove did. Here in Cape Breton we can sometimes see -10 to - 20 Celsius in February.

 

[begreen]

It will work, but it will also cost a lot more and I am not convinced the heating will be any better than with a good stove. For sure in a power outage it would be inferior without a generator. I agree with the aesthetics for a living room. But a stove that operates silently is also asthetically pleasing. We love the quiet heat from our stove. My vote would be for a good looking freestanding stove with a lot of mass and a great fire view.

What was the previous stove here?

 

[aansorge]

I have an Enerzone 2.5 ZC fireplace and it does a pretty good job of heating our 3000 sq ft home most months, but not Jan. Feb. when it needs some help from our furnace. Remember that most of these ZC fireplaces are simply a stove with a big sleave around them and a fan. There really isn't much difference. One nice thing about the enerzone is the auxillary fan option (600 bucks). With this, you can shoot heat to the basement (we use it fairly often in the late winter early spring).