Howdy, we just moved into a new 2 story, reverse floorplan, house with two open ZC fireplaces. I redid the bottom floor fireplace, bricked in the chase and put in a freestanding Harman XXV pellet stove. That area is the home theater/rec room and there are 2 guest bedrooms down there. Run the thing on a thermostat... set and forget. The upstairs main living area is my dilemma. I bought a VC woodburning insert. Now, mind you, I am the guy that researches anything I buy to death - as I did that pellet stove, especially since I had never owned one before. I have always used wood stoves/inserts and have had a gas stove. This VC insert I bought, I did not research at all because stupid old dinosaur me figured that a woodburner was a woodburner. You build your fire and control with a damper. WRONG. This thing has an automatic air control and NO MANUAL DAMPER CONTROL at all. I did not realize this until I was speaking with the manager of the place when he brought out a piece of replacement glass for the unit as mine was broken when the installer put it in. My concern is that from what I read, this is a constant burn rate unit controlled only by that amount of wood put into it. It has a relatively small firebox, roughly 2ft so that isn't too controllable really. The limited amount of info I can find from people who have one indicate that a full firebox is good for about a 4 hour burn - which is the pits really - because you apparently can't bank coals so you will wake up and have to rebuild a fire from scratch. Lastly, I don't necessarily want a raging fire going to run us out of the living room - I'd like to be able to throttle it down some. Does anyone here have experience with these types of fireplace inserts that can give me some real input? I have not lit a fire in this thing yet. I indicated to the manager Friday that I probably wanted to return this and replace it with a Pacific Energy unit they carry that does have a real damper control. He called me Monday evening and said he had spoken with the owner and that the owner was going to call me today. I have a feeling he will probably tell me that the won't take a return of this unit. If so, I move forward - it is completely my fault for not doing my due diligence. I have to decide whether or not to remove and sell it or not. Should I do that, what will I replace it with? Appreciate any help I can get. Preferably soon LOL, before the company owner calls me. Thanks much!
When you ordered this unit, were you the one to suggest this particular unit, or did a salesperson recommend it?
Need more details...what are you working with...as far as where it will go, chimney, size of the house, etc etc etc? Pics of the space and chimney would help too...
It wasn't necessarily recommended, it was one of the 4 or so that was on display. It looked good, a bit overkill for our upstairs which is 1300sqft but with an actual damper, wouldn't need to build an enormous fire. The fireplace opening itself is pretty large appx 39"x27". Can't get depth as the surround is on it right now. Chimney is about a 20ft run, sleeved with a 6" flex... brand new with this install. This will not upload my photo... I get a security error.
I spoke to the owner today. He was a wealth of knowledge about how the system works. In short, he convinced me to keep it and give it a go. He told me that the mechanical coil inside the unit self regulates the airflow based upon the heat being generated by the fuel to provide the optimal amount of air the extract the most BTUs out of the fuel. It supposedly results in a cleaner burn and more efficient use of the wood. The amount of heat output is regulated by how much wood you put in - if you want it hotter in the house, load more wood. It starts out with max air to get the wood going, then throttles down during mid-burn time and when the fuel is reduced to coals/embers, it introduces more air to, again, extract more BTUs. He said there is a bit of a learning curve. He is a wood burner himself, lives in the mountains like I do, and when he decides to replace his stove, he will buy one with an auto air control. Obviously, there is really no way to bank the coals at night, you do have to refire the stove in the morning. I will give it the college try for the rest of the winter. Hope it works out.
That sucks. You have a stove that runs as hot as it wants, not a stove that you can run as hot as needed to heat the room to the desired temperature. I’d be upset.
My own fault... I bought it. I'll see what its about for the rest of this season and if I can't tolerate it, I will pull it, sell it, take my losses and replace it. Self correcting mistake that I won't repeat again. Horkn, the pic was only 1.8mb but I cropped it down and it was the size apparently, so you were right.
