We are on our third heating season with a quadrafire insert. We heat the main part of our house--an area of approximately 1300 square feet. Noise was a consideration in our puchase (it is in our TV room) as was quality and looks. We have been extremely happy with our stove. We program the thermostat just like we would for our oil boiler. The hopper holds one 40lb bag of pellets. The burn pot is self cleaning. Once per week we thoroughly vacuum the burn chamber, clean the glass, and empty the ashes from the lower tray. We have it serviced annually. The amount of ash in the tray and dust in the pellets varies with the brand of pellets you burn. This year we found a dealer (in CT) that offered several different brands of pellets and detailed the wood and size of pellets. Our price for pellets was about $2.25 per bag--purchased by the ton. We will burn just over 2 tons. Quadrafire Mount Vernon insert. (60,000 btu)

Wish we had read the reviews before buying this two years ago. Our Quadra Fire Santa Fe stove has been a lemon - it hasn't worked much in the little over two years that we have owned it and has been costly to have repaired. In the last two years we have had to pay to replace the igniter, the thermocouple, and the auger motor. Our local dealer will not honor the warranty as it is under new ownership and they "don't have any paperwork". The service fees are ridiculously high. We are currently waiting on the auger motor - told it has been shipped - installation not until December 1st. We only use this to heat two rooms so it is not like the unit is taxed. So, sorry - I cannot recommend the Quadra Fire Stove. Customer service at Quadra Fire just says the dealer shoudl honor the warranty but so far no help getting the local dealer to honor the warranty work. DO NOT BUY this pellet stove.

I've been trying to get some feedback off this site for about a month now. I guess everyone has Summer on their minds and/or don't want to think about the Winter. Anyway....Here's what I've got: I have a 2,000 square foot colonial and live in Northeast Massachusetts. I just purchased a Jotul C550 Rockland Fireplace Wood Insert which is rated for approximately 1,800 square feet - it's going to be installed on July 31st. The Jotul C450 Kennebunk and C350 Winterport are rated for approximately 1,600 & 1,300 square feet respectively. All the feedback I got on these models was very positive. The only drawback I kept hearing on the C450 Kennebunk was the fact that it had 2 doors to open/close as opposed to just one door on the C350 & C550 models. Many wood burning homeowners I've spoken to tell me that they burn about 3 cords of wood a season and most have home sizes similar to mine. Most burn all season long and use wood as their primary heat source. All have told me that when stoked properly there are at least ambers still glowing in morning. They place a couple of logs in the box and they are back in business. Hopefully this helps and someone will be along soon to answer your other questions. Good Luck!

I'm a compulsive shopper. I way way way way way overthink any purchase of more than $100, and I live in terror of not getting the best deal possible. I have been known to waste $5 in gas to save $1 in groceries. So when, like many homeowners, I was caught last Winter with my pants down and heating oil $4/gallon, I started wishing I had something else. We don't have a good spot for a stove, which would have been my 1st choice, but we did have a wonderful masonary fireplace/air conditioner so we decided to go that route. So I started to do my homework to pick the "best" insert for my fireplace. I wanted ease of install, plain black w/ no frills, STEEL FIREBOX, the most glass. I narrowed it down to two: PE Summit and Lopi Freedom (I found the Regency dealer too late). After figuring the demensions and installation constraints I realized the Summit wasn't going to fit easily, and that I'd have to do som major demo to get it to fit. I wanted the biggest firebox I could get. I also wanted the option to completely flush mount the unit, and that was something the Lopi would allow me to do. I went with the Freedom,(not the bay I swear those things look so gawdy in the pictures). It was more when factored on a price/cubic ft of firebox but I really wanted the largest firebox I could get. Larger firebox=more heat right? Well, yes and no. You can get more heat but you may not want it. My insert is in a room about 300sqft, and at a perpetual 80 degrees. The rest of the main floor of the home fluctuates between 65 and 72, depending on how long I'm burning hot and how many fans I have blowing. I expected this. I think I could've easily gone with a smaller insert, because save for 1 overnight burn I'm tending the fire every 2 hours anyway, so I could just as easily toss in more wood at that time. Also, I did the survey/install myself. An experienced dealer may have known from experience whether a larger Regency (in hindsight my fist pic) or PE Summit would have fit, but I was hung up on flush-mounting the stove into the hearth. I love the stove. Its a quality/lifetime item. The large glass is great, and I don't miss the hearth at all. It stays clean with dry wood, and if I choke it down and it gets dirty I run it hot the next morning and it burns right off. I'm buring my own wood from my land. If you have to buy wood I'd suggest you get a pellet stove. This being said, to do it again I'd get the mid-size Regency or PE. Afte all the concern of wanting to flush-mount the insert (little ones) we mounted it forward, so we could have a stovetop. It was the right decision, and when the power went out for 7 days it was a really really good decision. I can't move all the heat this stove puts out, and the other ones are just as good and cheaper. The regency is close to the same insert, and the blower is standard on their unit. My friend has the mid-size Regency, and he saved $500 over what I paid, which is like getting free installation. DO NOT BOTHER WITH AN INSERT IF YOU DON'T GET THE BLOWER. Trust me, you'll be disappointed and you're wasting your money.