I'm new to the whole wood-burning thing, and have benefited tremendously from the information made available in this forum. I wanted to share some information that shocked me when I first came face-to-face with it, in case other neophytes like me want to deal with the sticker shock before making early planning decisions.
A lot of folks wonder which unit they should buy, and it tends to come down to three fundamental considerations:
1. fuel choice
2. square footage of space to heat
3. budget
Many of us were unaware just how fluid #3 could become, even without getting fancy. Consider, for example, the estimate I received for the installation of a BIS Tradition with outside air kit:
1. $950: Cost to remove existing (FUBARed) 20-year-old unit
2. $4079: Cost (MSRP) of BIS Tradition
3. $396: Cost (MSRP) of basic facade surround for the BIS Tradition
4. $743: Cost (MSRP) of the cheapest door option for the front of the BIS Tradition
5. $450: Cost for the gravity vents to allow me to direct some heat through a wall to the room behind the BIS
6. $1,200: Cost for chimney piping (Class A air-cooled piping, 20')
7. $350: Freight charge.
8. $1200: Installation charge
9. $1400: finish work (stone fascia)
Total: nearly $12,000 (once you add sales tax). Could we have gotten this done at a lower price point? Sure. That's not the point of this post, however. The point is that there are a lot of ways a basic install can swell into the price point of a serious home remodel project. When my wife and I were doing our early research, we saw base unit prices for zero-clearance fireplaces between $3,000 and $4,000 (give or take) and figured it would cost another thousand or so to install. We didn't realize that base units are incomplete. We didn't realize that good chimney piping can cost well north of $50 per foot. We did not realize that at least some installers charge the shipping cost for them to get the unit shipped to their showroom. This was naive of us, especially since our initial budget guesswork did not get us within 50% of the price estimate we finally obtained!
So, for those of you who are thinking about freeing yourself from the pains of propane or heating oil bills, wood units remain an attractive option. Just be aware that there are a lot of separate aspects of an install that can jack up the cost dramatically. Please note that the hardware alone for this $4,000 unit comes to over $6,000 *even when choosing the most basic options* (with the exception of the chimney piping; really, who wants to cheap out on that?). Tack on a thousand to remove the old unit, over $2,500 in labor costs to install and finish, and pretty soon you're talking about real money, know what I mean?
In our case, this is still (yelp!) an economically viable choice. Our propane costs have proven abusive, and even using the BIS as a heating supplement to the propane furnace (which is a newer, 90+ rated unit) we can pay off the BIS install (even at its sticker-shock price) in less than 10 years while enjoying a warmer house than we currently have. We're hopeful we can keep the BIS Tradition alive and well longer than 10 years, making this a straightforward decision, if a painful budget adjustment in the short-term.
We are still awaiting scheduling for installation, so I cannot comment much on the BIS Tradition itself other than to say that less expensive units would likely have struggled to heat the volume of air we're dealing with in our home. Speaking of which, why on earth are units rated by square footage? Should they not be rated by cubic footage of air in the house, with matrices to allow adjustments for the insulation ratings of walls and roofs? After all, a 2,000 sq ft ranch home with 8' ceilings is going to heat much more quickly than a 2,000 sq ft ranch house with 10' walls and voluminous cathedral ceilings, which would have twice the volume of air to heat as the first house....
Anyhow, thanks to all you posters here at Hearth.com who have taken the time to share information. It has been valuable to me in my research and I hope that this posting, in turn, is helpful to one or two of you out there.
A lot of folks wonder which unit they should buy, and it tends to come down to three fundamental considerations:
1. fuel choice
2. square footage of space to heat
3. budget
Many of us were unaware just how fluid #3 could become, even without getting fancy. Consider, for example, the estimate I received for the installation of a BIS Tradition with outside air kit:
1. $950: Cost to remove existing (FUBARed) 20-year-old unit
2. $4079: Cost (MSRP) of BIS Tradition
3. $396: Cost (MSRP) of basic facade surround for the BIS Tradition
4. $743: Cost (MSRP) of the cheapest door option for the front of the BIS Tradition
5. $450: Cost for the gravity vents to allow me to direct some heat through a wall to the room behind the BIS
6. $1,200: Cost for chimney piping (Class A air-cooled piping, 20')
7. $350: Freight charge.
8. $1200: Installation charge
9. $1400: finish work (stone fascia)
Total: nearly $12,000 (once you add sales tax). Could we have gotten this done at a lower price point? Sure. That's not the point of this post, however. The point is that there are a lot of ways a basic install can swell into the price point of a serious home remodel project. When my wife and I were doing our early research, we saw base unit prices for zero-clearance fireplaces between $3,000 and $4,000 (give or take) and figured it would cost another thousand or so to install. We didn't realize that base units are incomplete. We didn't realize that good chimney piping can cost well north of $50 per foot. We did not realize that at least some installers charge the shipping cost for them to get the unit shipped to their showroom. This was naive of us, especially since our initial budget guesswork did not get us within 50% of the price estimate we finally obtained!
So, for those of you who are thinking about freeing yourself from the pains of propane or heating oil bills, wood units remain an attractive option. Just be aware that there are a lot of separate aspects of an install that can jack up the cost dramatically. Please note that the hardware alone for this $4,000 unit comes to over $6,000 *even when choosing the most basic options* (with the exception of the chimney piping; really, who wants to cheap out on that?). Tack on a thousand to remove the old unit, over $2,500 in labor costs to install and finish, and pretty soon you're talking about real money, know what I mean?
In our case, this is still (yelp!) an economically viable choice. Our propane costs have proven abusive, and even using the BIS as a heating supplement to the propane furnace (which is a newer, 90+ rated unit) we can pay off the BIS install (even at its sticker-shock price) in less than 10 years while enjoying a warmer house than we currently have. We're hopeful we can keep the BIS Tradition alive and well longer than 10 years, making this a straightforward decision, if a painful budget adjustment in the short-term.
We are still awaiting scheduling for installation, so I cannot comment much on the BIS Tradition itself other than to say that less expensive units would likely have struggled to heat the volume of air we're dealing with in our home. Speaking of which, why on earth are units rated by square footage? Should they not be rated by cubic footage of air in the house, with matrices to allow adjustments for the insulation ratings of walls and roofs? After all, a 2,000 sq ft ranch home with 8' ceilings is going to heat much more quickly than a 2,000 sq ft ranch house with 10' walls and voluminous cathedral ceilings, which would have twice the volume of air to heat as the first house....
Anyhow, thanks to all you posters here at Hearth.com who have taken the time to share information. It has been valuable to me in my research and I hope that this posting, in turn, is helpful to one or two of you out there.
