I've had my Merrimack for almost three months now. I'm amazed at all the problems folks have had, I've had none of it. I have very little issue with smoke coming back into the room and the fan is not overly noisy, if I need it to be quieter I just turn down its speed a bit with the variable potentiometer. I have insert installed in a fairly small family room (10X12) that is in the end of our 2300 sqft house - so I made a wall opening and put in a fan that circulates the warmer air into the living room and the colder air comes back into the family room from the kitchen. I also made an opening in the ceiling at the foot of our basement stairs so heat from the same fan circulates down into the finished basement. I also had a cold air return put in near the Merrimack so heat is pulled out of the room into the furnace & whole house humidifier that we run 100% of the time-negating the issue with lowering humidity.
Even in late April, the Michigan nights are still getting down to 32, so I routinely light a fire at about 9:00 by putting a couple pieces of wadded up newspaper and lot of kindling and pine cones with a few dry oak logs on top. With the lever in the far left position (open) I light it and close but do not latch the door. After it ignites a lot of smoke builds up in the chamber, so I don't open the door!, not until the draft kicks in and I can see all that smoke get sucked out of the chamber. (this takes about 3-5 minutes) After 35-50 minutes the fan turns on, (I also turn on our in-wall circulation fan and ceiling fan) at this point the kindling is mostly burned up into coals so I slowly open that door and a puff of smoke comes out while I load up the chamber with seasoned oak. I then let it burn for another 30 minutes, when it is apparent everything is burning good, I close the lever to the right and go to bed about 11:00. For many hours through the window of the insert I can see a slow billowing of the flames, almost like a slow motion fire. It is then pouring out the heat and very little smoke is going out the chimney. When I get up at 6:00 there is still red hot coals enough so that all I need to do is throw the lever to he left, put a 3-4 logs in and close the door - they ignite on their own from those hot coals. When I leave for work I throw a few more logs on and throw the lever to the right.
The heat output of this unit is phenomenal. It is a heavy beast, at least 400 lbs., and that much metal takes quite a while to get fully heated up, but once it is heated up it stays heated up for a long time, putting out heat for hours after the fire goes out. The claim that this unit can keep a fire going for 12 hours in the brochure is something I've not been able to accomplish. I use seasoned red oak and maple, and it burns for a long time but if it stays burning for 8 hours I'd be surprised. Maybe this is an estimate including how long the unit puts out heat including the time even after the flame is out. I still don't think it would be 12 hours. But the heat this stove puts out raised our 66 degree house up to 75 degrees in about 4 hours, and when I get up in the morning, it's still 70-72 degrees at the thermostat in the living room. I haven't had any really cold Michigan weather to try this out in, but so far I am estimating it has saved me about 200$ in natural gas costs over 3 months. With the 350$ gas bills we can get in December-February, I estimating I can pay this unit off in around 5-7 years. If it will last that long, it will have been a solid investment.
Beyond the financial side of things, this stove is very efficient. We are burning much less wood and getting much more heat then we ever could with our fireplace. We also are getting a whole lot less smoke in the house. It has also made our whole house much more comfortable to live in. We came home from church today and the house was down to 65 because I didn't light a fire last night. So, I lit a fire at 1:00 this afternoon, 4 hours later now the living room is 73 and the family room is a toasty 88. It sure feels good when you come in from a 45 degree day. If I were to rate this stove on a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 9, the only reason I wouldn't give it a 10 is that is doesn't keep a fire as long as I expected...maybe others have found a way to achieve this, but I have not.
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