not happy with Brentwood fireplace.

[Marketa Esaili]

This is my first season with Brentwood EPA fireplace. It cost me fortune and somehow it's not what I expected it to be. According to mfr advertising, the fireplace peak output is 55000 BTHUh and it suppose to heat up approx. 1500sq.ft. After the fireplace was installed, I found on the glass door sticker stating efficiency is approx. 63% and heat output is 10,400 -27,000 BTUh. I have installed one duct to provide the kitchen with the heat and another duct supplies heat into my bedroom.Each duct has it's own booster fan (quite laud). As per mfr recommendation, the front panel of fireplace has no louvers, heat in living room is provided just by radiation. My living room is 20x20 and this way of heating is absolutely insufficient for this room. In the matter of fact, only well heated room is the kitchen. In the bedroom and living room, if I want to reach temp. around 65F I have to use additional source of heating. As soon I started using fireplace, the blower did not work right and will be replaced next week (under warranty).
Anytime I open the door to add a log, no matter how carefully I am opening the door almost always I get puff of smoke into the room (and with ducts immediately into other two rooms). Would anybody know cause of that puffing? That much for today.

 

[aansorge]

Do you have the Brentwood or the brentwood LV? The regular Brentwood appears to have louvers and an optional 200 cfm fan.
The LV model has a standard 175 cfm fan. If you have a regular Brentwood without the fan, order the fan. These zc fireplaces need fans to generate appreciable heat.

 

[Marketa Esaili]

Thanks for so fast response. My fireplace is Brentwood LV. The blower came within, unfortunately after a month of using turned to be defective and will be replaced. While I was using the fireplace with blower running, it still did not heat up area not even 1000 sq.ft. I am burning beech and ash wood. What I see as a problem, that if people request duct connection to the unit, mfr does not deliver the front panel of fireplace with the louver, they give you solid flat metal panel only, means the room where is fireplace located (lvg rm in my case) gets from fireplace only radiant heat, which for 400 sq.ft room is not enough. On another hand, if there were louvers on front panel, there would not be any control over proper air distribution between louver and ducts.
As I see this, the idea with ducts was good but it needs more designing work on how to make it working right.