High Efficiency Zero Clearance Unit

[Cincysnow]

First time poster, long time reader from Cincinnati, Ohio area. Bought a house that had an old pre-fab/zero clearance unit and finally upgraded to the Montecito EPA wood burning fireplace from Astria. Demo/install took place this past February, so this is the first full year of use. Appx. 1500 sq. ft. on the upper level, with a bedroom/bath/man cave in the basement. Will be tricky to see how i can move the air downstairs, as I didn’t opt for the duct air kit.

A few pics of the process and current look:

 

[mpaul]

Looks great. Nice before and after. I put the Montecito in a previous home I owned. It was about a 3,000 sq ft house and this unit did a great job heating it especially with fans going to circulate the warm air. One problem I had with it just to caution you on is the door. Unless they changed the design the door is attached to the hinges with four small screws. The screws didn’t do a very good job supporting the weight of the door and over time I stopped getting a good seal around the door. I eventually drilled them out and put in some wider ones. It helped but still didn’t hold very well because they weren’t able to go any deeper into the door due to the thickness of the door.
I’d love to know if they finally fixed this problem. I ended up going with a Travis for my install I just completed over the summer and have been extremely happy with it so far.

 

[Cincysnow]

Looks great. Nice before and after. I put the Montecito in a previous home I owned. It was about a 3,000 sq ft house and this unit did a great job heating it especially with fans going to circulate the warm air. One problem I had with it just to caution you on is the door. Unless they changed the design the door is attached to the hinges with four small screws. The screws didn’t do a very good job supporting the weight of the door and over time I stopped getting a good seal around the door. I eventually drilled them out and put in some wider ones. It helped but still didn’t hold very well because they weren’t able to go any deeper into the door due to the thickness of the door.
I’d love to know if they finally fixed this problem. I ended up going with a Travis for my install I just completed over the summer and have been extremely happy with it so far.

Not sure how the old hinges looked, but here are the hinges on my unit:

 

[mpaul]

Unfortunately, the picture you provided looks identical to the unit I used to have. Just be gentle on the door and try not to put any downward pressure on it. The screws are fairly shallow and can strip very. I did enjoy the heat output but the seal around the door started failing after one year because of the screws just couldn't hold the weight. I hope you have better luck then I did.

 

[Cincysnow]

Unfortunately, the picture you provided looks identical to the unit I used to have. Just be gentle on the door and try not to put any downward pressure on it. The screws are fairly shallow and can strip very. I did enjoy the heat output but the seal around the door started failing after one year because of the screws just couldn't hold the weight. I hope you have better luck then I did.

Got it. Thanks for your input, will def keep this in mind.