Hi Rhonda, I just had my Quadra-Fire 2700i wood insert installed. The total package, wood insert and installation, cost me $2,700. I've run two fires through it and it has performed flawlessly. My Quadra-Fire was installed in a 30 year old masonry fireplace. Just prior to installation, I had the masonry chimney repaired. The top two course of the old chimney formed a drip line (bricks were extended out slightly). The bricks were very loose. These top two course were removed, bricks cleaned, and reset flush with the other bricks of the chimney. The crew poured a 4 inch cement cap with 2 inch drip line. Tuckpointed the entire chimney. Took off roof shingles around the chimney, reflashed and reshingled everything (2nd story roof and 1st story garage roof both butted against chimney). Then the chimney was cleaned. The total chimney repair cost was a small fortune, $4,200. They then recommended a double wall stainless steel liner be installed with thermal installation (thermix?) poured around it. This additional work would have cost me $3,100 more with no net gain on my heat production. I refused the optional work and went wood insert shopping. The Quadra-Fire insert crew arrived the next week. The two man crew worked quickly, but encountered two snags. The damper had to be removed and this took almost an hour. Apparently there was cement (brick?) rubble dropped drow the flue by the original masons (30 years ago). None of the chimney sweeps that I hired over the past two decades ever said a word. The Quadra-Fire Crew remove two 5 gallon buckets of rubble, then the damper came out. Who knew? The second snag was the stainless steel liner. The liner was inserted down the chimney easy enough, but the battle was to connect it to the insert. Apparently the liner twists and locks on the insert. It took the two man crew two hours to get the liner to lock. I asked them if this install was overly difficult because it was a masonry fireplace rather then a prefab. They said that two man crew had installed about a thousand of these so far, and this was about normal. They claimed the prefabs were more difficult because it was a tighter fit. The two man crew was paid by the job, not by the hour, so they had no motivation to work slow on this. It took them a total of 6 hours to do everything, and they had all the tools and experience. Sorry for the long story, but some of you might think about "doing this yourself". I wanted to warn you about the difficult work needed to do the job right. This didn't look like a job that a beginner should even consider attempting. The other reason I tell this long story is because it was this thread that convinced me to look at Quadra-Fire inserts. I had looked at Regency, but the store didn't answer my questions to my satisfaction. So I bought a more expensive Quadra-Fire. Hope this helps you with your wood insert research. Tom

Thanks for the link. I had come across that post which prompted my safety concern. Seems that there are stoves and inserts rated for zero clearance boxes, but no zero clearance boxes rated for stoves and inserts. I'm leaning toward tearing out the existing chimney and box and starting from scratch. A masonry fireplace leaves me open to a lot more options and a larger stove.

To be real honest, i dont know the FPX line, one thing i do know, they are considerd one of the top of the line manufactures in the industry, there are a few FPX dealers and users on hearth.com as well. Im a quadrafire dealer, so im pretty familer with there product. If you stuff it, i mean stuff it loading it front to back, you will get long burn times. some experemneting with burn times in the show room where we have a 7100 burning, we got it to burn longer then that. We happen to sell firewood packs like you find at the grocery store and they fit perfectly front to back,(i can fit three packs at once in there!) I can get it where you cant fit a tooth pick in there. Like that. we got it to go 14 hours. Now that is with pine, and good air control. Heating capacity, the 7100 is a beast of a heater. I dont think you will have any complaints on the output, it can easly heat 2k square feet under normal conditions. I use a 55K stove to heat 1800 square feet in a well insulated home 9000' in the mountains. I cant possibly imagine a 90,000 btu fireplace not being able to handle most any heating situation. Of course, heat transfer through the house depends on house design. Hope that helps, and im not trying to plug hearth.com, but hey there is info there that you are looking for in reguards to the FPX line.

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.