First off i have to send out a big thank you to all the contributors on this forum for having so much info available to help me do the install on this insert at all much less by myself. Almost 100% myself actually... Had two neighbors help me carry it across the threshold of my patio door but i did everything else completely alone. I could not have done it without all the reading I did on this site.
I originally had my mind set on a few different inserts but with all the reading I did here I turned around and decided to look for an enviro and found one of the last ones around for a great price. Got a really good vibe about them from this place. So happy with the way it looks especially since my wife approves. So far all the talk about enviros being well built and easy to run appears to be true. I have a 2200 square foot 2 story built in 1985 but my 350 -400 square foot family room where the fireplace is located on an outside wall sits to the side with a vaulted ceiling that does not have a story above it. I was worried about potential drafting / stack issues because of the construction of the house. The fireplace drafted like a demon as an open masonry fireplace, but I was still worried. So far it has been easy to start fires with no fuss whatsoever and no smoke farting into the room on startup or reloads despite the warm temps that i have operated in. I assume this good performance will only continue or improve in colder weather. Shame they aren't making any 2020 spec inserts but thats why i jumped on this one in April. Call it premonition I guess.
I cleaned out my masonry flue and smoke chamber which was a 15 foot tall 2 foot by 2 foot brick chimney with a 12 by 12 clay tile running up the middle and relined it with preinsulated rockflex 316 ti. I then stuffed as much roxul as i could get down from the top all around the liner and capped the chimney with a new stainless steel chase cover and made sure everything was shingled properly up to the top cap. I then stuffed as much roxul as i could get up around the liner into the tiles from the bottom and filled as much of the smoke chamber as i reasonably could and made a sheet metal block off plate.
Over the past month I made a couple small fires to burn off the paint fumes and a couple weekends ago we had a pretty chilly night (60s during the day down to 39 at night) so after building a smaller fire on a Sunday evening I loaded the box full at 10 pm and really got it going and slowly worked the air control down until I had it fully closed. I got nervous that i had overdone things because it looked like an incinerator, was kicking out the heat like crazy and I didn't know if I had overloaded it but it seemed to burn real hot but nicely and I eventually went on to bed. When I got downstairs at 6 in the morning there was still a very healthy bed of bright red coals and the blower was still going strong and throwing a ton of heat. My wife left for work at 8 and there were still plenty of coals glowing and the blower was still running then. Really pleased with a 10 - 11 hour heat output on my first try. (If you read this forum as much as i have and you haven't figured out how to get great performance out of a wood burner my opinion is you are probably a moron. Too many people here know what they are doing and are offering up great advice.)
The only thing I am still a little unsure of is my house construction. I would bet a lot of money that the drywall above my mantle is over wood framing (I could be wrong) and i hope that the insulated liner plus the roxul will keep that area safe (that face of the smoke chamber was the worst area to try to get the roxul into... I really wish I had spent more time on that part and now its buried behind all that steel ). I checked it with my hand and a heat gun and the drywall above the mantle never got above 85 degrees though the bottom of the mantle itself did get up to about 100 to 105 at the hottest point. I wil definitely be keeping an eye on this part of the assembly, but thenagain the wood on my get gets treated to temps like this every summer.
![[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/265/265245-16b2280bf5374abc83fd4ad4798de37d.jpg?hash=LEw6dPfLmp "[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700")
![[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/265/265246-b25854be2de6abc41bb37608f2997c4e.jpg?hash=KdTUWUhxWr "[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700")
![[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/265/265247-0ee1298e4627d5e8ed9bd89dabccc259.jpg?hash=MsWNSeFEhG "[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700")
![[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700](https://www.hearth.com/talk/data/attachments/265/265248-af03b580d8e40aca184f48c3778e7198.jpg?hash=UkYDlo6V2w "[Hearth.com] New enviro boston 1700")
I originally had my mind set on a few different inserts but with all the reading I did here I turned around and decided to look for an enviro and found one of the last ones around for a great price. Got a really good vibe about them from this place. So happy with the way it looks especially since my wife approves. So far all the talk about enviros being well built and easy to run appears to be true. I have a 2200 square foot 2 story built in 1985 but my 350 -400 square foot family room where the fireplace is located on an outside wall sits to the side with a vaulted ceiling that does not have a story above it. I was worried about potential drafting / stack issues because of the construction of the house. The fireplace drafted like a demon as an open masonry fireplace, but I was still worried. So far it has been easy to start fires with no fuss whatsoever and no smoke farting into the room on startup or reloads despite the warm temps that i have operated in. I assume this good performance will only continue or improve in colder weather. Shame they aren't making any 2020 spec inserts but thats why i jumped on this one in April. Call it premonition I guess.
I cleaned out my masonry flue and smoke chamber which was a 15 foot tall 2 foot by 2 foot brick chimney with a 12 by 12 clay tile running up the middle and relined it with preinsulated rockflex 316 ti. I then stuffed as much roxul as i could get down from the top all around the liner and capped the chimney with a new stainless steel chase cover and made sure everything was shingled properly up to the top cap. I then stuffed as much roxul as i could get up around the liner into the tiles from the bottom and filled as much of the smoke chamber as i reasonably could and made a sheet metal block off plate.
Over the past month I made a couple small fires to burn off the paint fumes and a couple weekends ago we had a pretty chilly night (60s during the day down to 39 at night) so after building a smaller fire on a Sunday evening I loaded the box full at 10 pm and really got it going and slowly worked the air control down until I had it fully closed. I got nervous that i had overdone things because it looked like an incinerator, was kicking out the heat like crazy and I didn't know if I had overloaded it but it seemed to burn real hot but nicely and I eventually went on to bed. When I got downstairs at 6 in the morning there was still a very healthy bed of bright red coals and the blower was still going strong and throwing a ton of heat. My wife left for work at 8 and there were still plenty of coals glowing and the blower was still running then. Really pleased with a 10 - 11 hour heat output on my first try. (If you read this forum as much as i have and you haven't figured out how to get great performance out of a wood burner my opinion is you are probably a moron. Too many people here know what they are doing and are offering up great advice.)
The only thing I am still a little unsure of is my house construction. I would bet a lot of money that the drywall above my mantle is over wood framing (I could be wrong) and i hope that the insulated liner plus the roxul will keep that area safe (that face of the smoke chamber was the worst area to try to get the roxul into... I really wish I had spent more time on that part and now its buried behind all that steel ). I checked it with my hand and a heat gun and the drywall above the mantle never got above 85 degrees though the bottom of the mantle itself did get up to about 100 to 105 at the hottest point. I wil definitely be keeping an eye on this part of the assembly, but thenagain the wood on my get gets treated to temps like this every summer.
