Hi Chispa: My wife and I had a Regency I3100 (basically the same as your Hampton, I gather) installed in our house on November 3rd. It's been great; we haven't run our furnace for one second since! Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is this: When I installed the blower I had to use a rubber mallet to get it to seat fully into the tight spring clips under the stove. If you look at the back of the fan assembly before you attach it to the stove, you will notice that the heat sensor (silver disc) is mounted so that it will have contact with the stove body when the assembly is fully seated. If the sensor does not contact the stove, I suspect the blower will not come on when set to auto unless your stove is overheating. As to how hot a fire to make and how to do it: As Wolf said, how hot to make the fire is a function of whether the blower is going or not and what speed it's on. I start out with the damper wide open and the door cracked as well. I set the fan to "auto" and "low". It takes two sheets of crumpled newspaper and a bit of kindling to get two smallish logs going. Once that's established, I add some more wood and close the door, but keep the damper wide open until the fan starts (20-30 minutes). With the blower on low I run the stove with the damper about 1/2 way open and we get lots of heat, no overheating, and a lot of blue secondary combustion at the baffles. With the blower on high I can run it with the damper almost all the way open. It goes through wood much faster, but boy does it heat up the house in a hurry! When I go to bed at night I load it up with as much wood as I can stuff in, let the fire get established, then set the damper open about 3/4 inch and the fan on low. This gives us heat all night and we still have a good bed of coals in the morning. I did have one scare just like Wolf. I put wood in and forgot to turn the fan back on. I went upstairs and I could hear the "tink tink tink" sound as the stove was heating up. When I went down, the air pipes against the baffle were all glowing. I turned the fan on high for a few minutes, then back to low. I turn the fan off when I load wood (as the manual recommends) because the air flowing from the outlets can pull smoke out of the stove (venturi effect) into the house. Good luck and best wishes for low heating bills! Rich

Stowy, In most places for $3,800 you could get a nice fireplace insert like an Hampton HI300 and a stainless liner installed, (ballpark). I'm biased to the Pacific Energy brand and would also suggest you look at a PE Summit insert, which might even be less. There are obviously other brands as well. Two things to note: first, virtually all new wood stoves have glass windows, nice for atmosphere and you can monitor the condition of the fire much better. Secondly, stainless flex pipe will not burn out in two years unless you misuse your stove and have a lot of chimney fires in it. It is the mainstay of the industry for most relines. Interestingly, I had almost exactly the same quote for my fireplace. One reason it is so much is that most fireplace flues are 12x12 or bigger. There is much more stainless steel in a 12x12 square liner than a 6" round liner so the cost of the product is much higher. I just bought my own 316Ti stainless 6" liner for $300 and insulated it and installed in about 4 hours with some family helping out. This is going into a wood stove which I put in my fireplace. I thought about an insert but stole a nice used stove at a yard sale for $75 and fixed it up for $50 of parts and paint. I bought $40 of unfaced ceramic blanket insulation, $35 for a stainless mesh wrapper and $5 of foil to tidy up the ends of the insulation. So I'm safely burning in an as good as new stove for just about $500 but as my name suggests I am a New England Yankee skinflint. It is a fairly easy thing to do if you are relatively handy but not everyone likes getting on a roof. A lot of stove shops in my area charge about $1,000-$1,200 for a reline. I would suggest you look at doing a hearth mounted wood stove if you have the room but be mindful of clearances to a mantle if you have one. You'll generally get a bit more heat from a stove than an insert. Also inserts have integrated blowers which need electricity. If the power goes out, it is nice to have a stove which can convect more heat. Good luck

Have you called the manufacturer Regency? Link below. That would be my starting point or perhaps dealer that sold it to you. IMO Here is a link that might be useful: Regency

dftush, That does sound heartbreaking. As a general rule, be assertive in looking out for your own interests when it comes to dealing with your neighbor or anyone else. Also, explain the reason WHY you do or don't want contractors, neighbors, and others to do things or not do things a certain way. It's possible your neighbor thought you felt guilty about him plowing because you weren't paying him and had no idea you were proud of your driveway and that the plowing would cause significant damage. Of course it's also possible that he's just one of those people who "doesn't get it" because his brain is wired a different way and he doesn't have a sense about when he is causing damage, and will do things even when told not to. Get an estimate for the repair of your driveway and ask your neighbor to pay for it. Don't accept any offers for him to fix it himself. (Basically he can't be trusted to do it properly, no matter how much of a nice guy he may be.) If he will not pay, ask the company whose truck he drove to pay for it. The company may not have to pay out of pocket if they have insurance for damage caused by plowing. If they will not, gather your evidence (it will be helpful if you took before and after photos) and take both your neighbor and the company that owns the truck to small claims court. For use in dealing with the police or court system in the future, write him letter and send it certified mail informing him you do not want him to plow your driveway and if he does, you will consider it trespassing and report it to the police. Mail a copy to the company that owns the truck as well. Keep the a record of sending the letter, including the delivery confirmation receipts for your records. If he STILL doesn't take the hint, you might consider putting a locked gate at the end of your driveway, or parking a car across the end of the driveway when it snows.