Help! Need to find a wood insert for our shallow-ish 1900 fireplace

[Starclassic]

Greetings all. My wife and I bought a historic home that has 2 fireplaces. We're trying to find a high efficiency wood insert for the larger of the two, but the size of the fireplace opening is a little on the shallower side (17 3/4" deep at the floor, tapering to 14" at the top. It seems like width (32 3/4") and height (29") could accommodate most medium-to-large size inserts but the depth seems like it's an issue.

I've been reading about people with shallow fireplaces just going with a freestanding wood stove instead of an insert but ... there's got to be some decent units out there that are 17-18" depth. I'm just wondering if any of you have had this issue, and if any have recommendations for units that might fit this space. Our local chimney stores haven't been very helpful to date. We've been looking at everything from Hearthstone to Jotul (used), Napoleon, PE, Blaze King, Osburn, etc.

The property is 2 acres full of timber (black locust, maple, white/burr oak mostly). So we're pretty motivated to get a wood burning system going to help us reduce our reliance on the home's old inefficient hot water boiler!

 

[jetsam]

It looks like you might have lots of room there- consider a rear venting freestanding stove too!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

It looks like you might have lots of room there- consider a rear venting freestanding stove too!

Jetsam, would a Princess insert fit in there size wise? I recall that it requires much less depth than other options while still having a good-sized firebox for an insert.

 

[jetsam]

Jetsam, would a Princess insert fit in there size wise? I recall that it requires much less depth than other options while still having a good-sized firebox for an insert.

With room to spare as far as I see... It's made to be semiflush.

If you go into the fireplace 12" deep, and at that point you have 24" of height available and 26" of width available, you should be fine.



I heat my whole house with an older version of that insert. But any insert makes engineering compromises that a freestander isn't forced to make, and there's a big natural advantage to having 6 sides of the heater in the room versus one side. I always encourage people to consider the freestander!

 

[PaulOinMA]

There was at least one other discussion on shallow inserts not that long ago, if you search.

 

[Starclassic]

It looks like you might have lots of room there- consider a rear venting freestanding stove too!

Jetsam, would a Princess insert fit in there size wise? I recall that it requires much less depth than other options while still having a good-sized firebox for an insert.

Thanks for the replies! I happened upon the Napoleon S20i today, and it appears I may have found a candidate. I'm reading mostly good reviews about it, too...

 

[PaulOinMA]

Think my Lopi Answer is 14", too.

 

[Starclassic]

@PaulOinMA @jetsam @DuaeGutta Now I'm looking at the Blaze King Princess 29 insert! Really like the look and setup of this one. We're hoping to heat as much of our home as possible with whatever stove we purchase and I like the long low burn potential with the catalyst.

The Princess insert has more of the stove sitting further out into the room which I'd assume would translate to more radiant heat. My biggest concern is the dimensions of my hearth pad which looks to be a few inches too shallow. It's a super old historic home and the hearth pad is this beautiful old brick, floors are 120-year old narrow plank quartersawn oak. Looking to avoid any sort of hearth rebuild.