I'll start off by saying this is a great place.
I found this site when I was searching the net a couple months ago looking for information for my situation and haven’t stopped reading since. I have no idea why it took me so long to register. I suppose it's because most of what I ever wanted to know was answered with a search. So it's about time I stopped lurking and thanked everyone here.
My story is I own a 1050's 1900 sq ft ranch house in WNY. Former self employed small landscaping and snowplowing business. Gave it up a couple years ago when I injured my back and couldn't do all the labor that comes w/ the job. I'm fine now though. I Have always had lot of wood from our 2 acre 1/2 heavily wooded property. Most always burned a few times a month in our original, built in Heatilator steel fireplace with the 2 vents on each side in the basement.
It was in pretty bad shape and put out little if not negative heat. The damper had rusted off and fell apart years ago but still usable. Only burned a handful of times last season and a good thing too. As when I checked out the fireplace a few months ago I realized the firebox was warped a couple places in the back. On further inspection part of the smoke shelf fell in when I poked it with my hand. I also noticed a couple cracks in the firebox as well. Obviously I could no longer use it, as I value my house, property and most important our lives.
Because of it being older as well as the same brick as the outside of the house that can no longer be found or even closely matched. I decided to research inserts in the net. Eventually I came across here and was amazed that there are so many "burners" at one place on the net. I read the reviews, took down my measurements and in early OCT. I started my search for an insert. Made a bunch of phone calls to hearth shops who told me to either stop in, set up an appt, or flat out told me that couldn't do an install until next year. Then I headed out to check them out in person. Lets just say dealers in this area are pretty lame. A couple places advertised wood burning inserts but once in the store told me they only sold gas inserts and wood stoves. Couple other places had absolutely no customer service skills what so ever. If I walk in a hearth shop and say I'm interested in a wood burning insert. I expect a little bit more than the manager to walk me over to them and say we have this one and the upscale version and know extremely little about the products they are offering for sale, but clearly not trying to sell. One hearth shop didn’t even offer installation on their products.
Finally made it to the place I originally thought would be the best and they defiantly were. They took their time, explained their inserts and answered every question we had. They are also the areas Regency dealer, gave us a great price and would be able to do the install the next week.
We have had quite a few chimney fires and idiots burning their houses down w/ hot coals in the area recently so I defiantly wanted them to do the install check everything out. Can never be to safe when it comes to playing with fire.
I ended up with a Regency I2400, blower, cap & liner installed for about $3,400. Install took about 2hrs then they fired it up and went over everything with us .
I can't believe the heat this thing puts out. Our furnace only kicked on once this afternoon and it's 28 outside. I turned off the furnace a couple hr's ago to see how well it would be able to maintain the house on it's own. It's about 75 downstairs and reading 63 on the thermostat upstairs right now.
Thanks guys.
BTW: anyone else from WNY here?
I found this site when I was searching the net a couple months ago looking for information for my situation and haven’t stopped reading since. I have no idea why it took me so long to register. I suppose it's because most of what I ever wanted to know was answered with a search. So it's about time I stopped lurking and thanked everyone here.
My story is I own a 1050's 1900 sq ft ranch house in WNY. Former self employed small landscaping and snowplowing business. Gave it up a couple years ago when I injured my back and couldn't do all the labor that comes w/ the job. I'm fine now though. I Have always had lot of wood from our 2 acre 1/2 heavily wooded property. Most always burned a few times a month in our original, built in Heatilator steel fireplace with the 2 vents on each side in the basement.
It was in pretty bad shape and put out little if not negative heat. The damper had rusted off and fell apart years ago but still usable. Only burned a handful of times last season and a good thing too. As when I checked out the fireplace a few months ago I realized the firebox was warped a couple places in the back. On further inspection part of the smoke shelf fell in when I poked it with my hand. I also noticed a couple cracks in the firebox as well. Obviously I could no longer use it, as I value my house, property and most important our lives.
Because of it being older as well as the same brick as the outside of the house that can no longer be found or even closely matched. I decided to research inserts in the net. Eventually I came across here and was amazed that there are so many "burners" at one place on the net. I read the reviews, took down my measurements and in early OCT. I started my search for an insert. Made a bunch of phone calls to hearth shops who told me to either stop in, set up an appt, or flat out told me that couldn't do an install until next year. Then I headed out to check them out in person. Lets just say dealers in this area are pretty lame. A couple places advertised wood burning inserts but once in the store told me they only sold gas inserts and wood stoves. Couple other places had absolutely no customer service skills what so ever. If I walk in a hearth shop and say I'm interested in a wood burning insert. I expect a little bit more than the manager to walk me over to them and say we have this one and the upscale version and know extremely little about the products they are offering for sale, but clearly not trying to sell. One hearth shop didn’t even offer installation on their products.
Finally made it to the place I originally thought would be the best and they defiantly were. They took their time, explained their inserts and answered every question we had. They are also the areas Regency dealer, gave us a great price and would be able to do the install the next week.
We have had quite a few chimney fires and idiots burning their houses down w/ hot coals in the area recently so I defiantly wanted them to do the install check everything out. Can never be to safe when it comes to playing with fire.
I ended up with a Regency I2400, blower, cap & liner installed for about $3,400. Install took about 2hrs then they fired it up and went over everything with us .
I can't believe the heat this thing puts out. Our furnace only kicked on once this afternoon and it's 28 outside. I turned off the furnace a couple hr's ago to see how well it would be able to maintain the house on it's own. It's about 75 downstairs and reading 63 on the thermostat upstairs right now.
Thanks guys.
BTW: anyone else from WNY here?
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