SculptureOfSound
Feeling the Heat
The 1750 is a good though. I always forget about the non-flush Lopi inserts. The small hybrid fire is quite small at just 1.2 cubic feet...although two units going would in theory be the equivalent of 2.4 cu feet which may be enough to heat the space. That is actually an important question - where do you live, how much space are you trying to heat, and are there a lot of windows, do you have decent insulation, etc?
I can heat about 1650 square feet with my 2.0 cu foot Montepelier, but we don't have that many windows, I use plastic over them during the winter to help (we have one large single pane window and a patio door that is old and leaks a lot). In my case the difficulty is getting the heat distributed as we have a long ranch and the fireplace is on one end of it.
If you do plan to go with back to back units I presume you'd want to be burning both of them most of the time - to do this they will need to be sized right. If you get two 2.0+ cubic feet units you may overheat the space if it isn't very open. Conversely, a large open space in a cold climate would likely be underserved by the 2.4 combined cubic feet of the back to back small hybrid fire inserts.
Actually, thinking about it more there's one more option you could consider. Two back to back Vermont Castings Montpeliers. I suggest this for two reasons - the first being it has one of the largest glass viewing areas. I own one of these and the view is incredible.
Secondly, they may be able to fit. You can get the unit with a "3 inch extension" which brings it out 3 inches onto the heart (it's normally flush mount)...what this would do is reduce the depth of each unit to 14 inches rather than 17. So 28 inches combined. The tight spot would be the height - the unit measures at 21.5 inches at its highest spot, but it is only 26 inches wide. So if you measure the height at 13" from center, if you have 21.5 there you could squeeze it in (or if you're ok with a bit of modification, a bit of brick could be chipped out of the arch to accomodate the unit).
This is a no-frills 2.0 cubic foot insert that has a great fireview. If aesthetics are high on your list it excels there too - it not only looks really nice on the outside, but the inside uses customer refractory panels that look much nicer than the usual firebrick of every other insert (of course the potential downside here is the cost to replace...much more $$$ than firebrick).
Given that fire view and aesthetics rank high on your priority list I think the Montpelier is definitely worth looking at. Just know that if you had two of them cranking they could really overheat a small or medium sized room unless it is very open to the rest of the space.
I can heat about 1650 square feet with my 2.0 cu foot Montepelier, but we don't have that many windows, I use plastic over them during the winter to help (we have one large single pane window and a patio door that is old and leaks a lot). In my case the difficulty is getting the heat distributed as we have a long ranch and the fireplace is on one end of it.
If you do plan to go with back to back units I presume you'd want to be burning both of them most of the time - to do this they will need to be sized right. If you get two 2.0+ cubic feet units you may overheat the space if it isn't very open. Conversely, a large open space in a cold climate would likely be underserved by the 2.4 combined cubic feet of the back to back small hybrid fire inserts.
Actually, thinking about it more there's one more option you could consider. Two back to back Vermont Castings Montpeliers. I suggest this for two reasons - the first being it has one of the largest glass viewing areas. I own one of these and the view is incredible.
Secondly, they may be able to fit. You can get the unit with a "3 inch extension" which brings it out 3 inches onto the heart (it's normally flush mount)...what this would do is reduce the depth of each unit to 14 inches rather than 17. So 28 inches combined. The tight spot would be the height - the unit measures at 21.5 inches at its highest spot, but it is only 26 inches wide. So if you measure the height at 13" from center, if you have 21.5 there you could squeeze it in (or if you're ok with a bit of modification, a bit of brick could be chipped out of the arch to accomodate the unit).
This is a no-frills 2.0 cubic foot insert that has a great fireview. If aesthetics are high on your list it excels there too - it not only looks really nice on the outside, but the inside uses customer refractory panels that look much nicer than the usual firebrick of every other insert (of course the potential downside here is the cost to replace...much more $$$ than firebrick).
Given that fire view and aesthetics rank high on your priority list I think the Montpelier is definitely worth looking at. Just know that if you had two of them cranking they could really overheat a small or medium sized room unless it is very open to the rest of the space.
