Best wood burning insert for occasional use?

[bholler]

Yes, welded means a rigid liner. The places around here include the installation with the unit. I will look into the type of flex liner. What thickness is considered "heavy duty"?

There is also welded seam flex liner called ventinox. It is a good liner but it is lightwall. Light wall is .005" or .006" heavy wall is .014" there is also a midweight which is constructed the same as the heavy wall it is just .010"

 

[Fod01]

Late to this party - the only complaint on our Montpelier is the small firebox. Heats well, loves dry wood.

Either way, good luck with whatever you decide. Pics or it didn't happen [emoji6]

 

[Scrounger]

Thanks for the advice. I went to 3 stores around here, and the prices were pretty painful for all these except for the Buck:

Buck Model 74 -would get this but it does not sit flush (extends out ~6"), and we would need a hearth extender.

These are all over $5K installed:
Quadrafire Voyageur
Morso 5660
Avalon Flush Wood Plus (Shadowbox)
Travis Cape Cod

I am going to keep on looking for a wood insert that sits flush, in matte black.

I'll look into the Englander 13NCi or Drolet 1800i, but it looks like they both extend out from the firebox quite a bit.

Are there any options that are flush, and are not over $5K installed?

About 8-10 years into our Jotul Kennebec, I love it. Started out with your intentions, weekend burning, power outages, etc, Turned into 24-7 burning. Now the furnace doesn't even get turned on. It's pretty much a flush mount and don't get much heat out of it without the blower running. Fortunately we don't lose power that often. I would still have to run a generator to power the blower to keep the house comfortable if we lost power. The down side is hearing the blower running all the time. It isn't loud but is noticeable. Have not been disappointed at all with our stove. I am thinking about tearing out the entire masonary chimney, doing away with the insert, and going with a freestander.

 

[Hatrackr]

I second the enviro Kodak 1700 we are going into our second winter with ours and love it! Out the door for less than $2500 with the liner ( I did the install) easy to operate and a nice size fire box. Check enviro's website they run specials in the fall.

 

[JinRockville]

There is also welded seam flex liner called ventinox. It is a good liner but it is lightwall. Light wall is .005" or .006" heavy wall is .014" there is also a midweight which is constructed the same as the heavy wall it is just .010"

Thanks for the response. I will have to inquire further into what a "welded" liner means.

The place that has the Pacific Energy Neo 2.5 said they use a flex 16-gauge stainless steel, pre-insulated liner. Does this mean that the stainless steel is 16-gauge, or 0.060"? That seems much heavier than expected? Does this sound right?

 

[JinRockville]

About 8-10 years into our Jotul Kennebec, I love it. Started out with your intentions, weekend burning, power outages, etc, Turned into 24-7 burning. Now the furnace doesn't even get turned on. It's pretty much a flush mount and don't get much heat out of it without the blower running. Fortunately we don't lose power that often. I would still have to run a generator to power the blower to keep the house comfortable if we lost power. The down side is hearing the blower running all the time. It isn't loud but is noticeable. Have not been disappointed at all with our stove. I am thinking about tearing out the entire masonary chimney, doing away with the insert, and going with a freestander.

The Jotuls are very nice, but more than I would like to spend. You are probably right that we will use it more than anticipated. I will have to look into using the blower with our portable generator.

 

[tickbitty]

The Lopi 1750i extends a little onto the hearth but not excessive, for clearance you can get a removable stove board for ember protection in front. I've been pretty thrilled with ours, you can actually cook on it and while we use the blower most of the time it would convect nicely with an outage.

 

[trailblaster]

We love our Kodiak 1700 by enviro. We heat a modern colonial 2400sqft house fairly well in nh. It does well with long burns. If you get in cranking, it's 75-80 downstairs and 65-70 upstairs. We're on our 6th year with it.

 

[JinRockville]

There is also welded seam flex liner called ventinox. It is a good liner but it is lightwall. Light wall is .005" or .006" heavy wall is .014" there is also a midweight which is constructed the same as the heavy wall it is just .010"

I got more information about the preinsulated liner. The vendor said it is made of 316ti stainless steel on the inside, with insulation, then aluminum on the outside. It comes from the manufacturer with a 25 year warranty. Is this okay?

 

[JinRockville]

Just wanted to follow up. We purchased the Neo 2.5, but it did not fit in our fireplace! The specs from the manufacturer are incorrect! We ended up buying the Regency CI2600. It is more expensive than the Neo 2.5 but has a larger viewing window. I will start a new thread on the Regency.

 

[TechFox]

The Jotuls are very nice, but more than I would like to spend. You are probably right that we will use it more than anticipated. I will have to look into using the blower with our portable generator.

If it's just the blower you'd like to use during a power outage, it would be easier and less expensive to get a 200-400 watt inverter, keep it with a charged up car battery, and just plug the blower into it when needed. The blower probably uses 50 watts or less, my guess, and the battery would power it for many hours - probably longer than the power might be out, and use a solar cell panel to recharge the batt, and keep it charged... no gasoline needed... that's what I've got set aside for the same circumstance...

 

[TechFox]

I'll also mention a 500 watt inverter and car battery will power an 8-cup coffee maker (typically 300 watts or so) just fine for an added bit of comfortable warmth and confidence...

 

[begreen]

Our little Ecofan helped our F400 out through several multi-day power outages. It ran 24/7 right along with the stove. It also kept the kettle hot for coffee, tea and cocoa.