Dear community!
We recently moved to our very first house (in MA) and faced huge bills for that oil fired boiler. So we decided to use our fireplace and put in an insert wood stove to save on that heating bill. In fact we've almost been talked into install in a propane one, but after evaluating fuel price, we decided to get a wood stove. The house is 2.2k sq ft, has 2 stories and fireplace is in the first floor.
In our local store we seem to have a choice between VC Montpelier II, Lopi Evergreen or Lopi Flush Wood ones. I really like the Evergreen, especially its chimney damper and ability to boil water on it. But from these three it seem to have the smallest viewing window, which is a factor too, since we wanted to enjoy the fire being in the room. Although, I'm not sure if we lose in efficiency if we choose one of the other two since they're flat face ones. Plus, that chimney damper that Lopi has is a big advantage for chimney sweep since we wouldn't have to move the insert to do that.
Guys who have experience with these, what do you think? Are there any other factors that we need to consider? Is there anything significant to consider if choosing flat face insert vs non-flat one or between these specific models?
Thank you in advance!
P.S.: This is my first post on this forum, please excuse me or any silly questions.
We recently moved to our very first house (in MA) and faced huge bills for that oil fired boiler. So we decided to use our fireplace and put in an insert wood stove to save on that heating bill. In fact we've almost been talked into install in a propane one, but after evaluating fuel price, we decided to get a wood stove. The house is 2.2k sq ft, has 2 stories and fireplace is in the first floor.
In our local store we seem to have a choice between VC Montpelier II, Lopi Evergreen or Lopi Flush Wood ones. I really like the Evergreen, especially its chimney damper and ability to boil water on it. But from these three it seem to have the smallest viewing window, which is a factor too, since we wanted to enjoy the fire being in the room. Although, I'm not sure if we lose in efficiency if we choose one of the other two since they're flat face ones. Plus, that chimney damper that Lopi has is a big advantage for chimney sweep since we wouldn't have to move the insert to do that.
Guys who have experience with these, what do you think? Are there any other factors that we need to consider? Is there anything significant to consider if choosing flat face insert vs non-flat one or between these specific models?
Thank you in advance!
P.S.: This is my first post on this forum, please excuse me or any silly questions.