Thanks! It’s really nice to have. We’ve had a 100 degree difference inside to out before (-25 out 75 in)!

Thanks! We really love how it turned out. Glad the video was helpful. Best of luck with your project!

Your welcome! Good luck with your home planning ☘️

Our pleasure! Glad you enjoyed it

BARILOCHE VILLA LA ANGOSTURA SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES USHUAIA A R G E N T I N A

I don’t remember exactly - we paid to have it installed by the dealer we bought it from, but if I remember correctly, because of the height off the floor we had it, it didn’t require any insulation for the floor or hearth. Above the fireplace for 4-6 feet or something, it had to be non-flammable materials, so that part of the chase was framed with meta studs and cement board but I don’t recall that needing a certain R value. That said, I think cement board has a better R value per inch than Durock, so depending what you need to do that might save you some thickness?

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily okay thanks. Durock is the only cement board I could find in stock. If your stove is 12” off the floor, then I believe you are correct that no R value is required. I am considering going 12” or higher off the floor, but like the look of a raised hearth.

BARILOCHE VILLA LA ANGOSTURA SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES USHUAIA A R G E N T I N A

Oh no! We haven’t had to deal with CS at all. I do have one cracked brick now I suppose I should replace.

Thanks so much!!! 🙏🏼

Thanks!! We love it, we run it every day in the winter and it really use beautiful to have going. The forced air blower duct connects to the side. I don’t think you need much space, just enough for the hose to exit and bend. Maybe a foot? Our duct bends into the basement below then, and the fan has to be at least tent feet down the ductwork from the fireplace. Check out the installation manual - p 66 has more details. sbiweb.blob.core.windows.net/media/3911/45858a_2021-10-27.pdf

It is concrete actually, as is the hearth. If I remember correctly at that height it needed to be non flammable. We looked at soapstone but never liked how it would stain or show dirt. We’ve been really happy with the dark colored concrete.

BARILOCHE VILLA LA ANGOSTURA SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES USHUAIA A R G E N T I N A

Yes I think so - but I would definitely have a larger non-combustible mantle to shield it. You may have to dust it a lot due to the ash / soot.

You’re welcome! It heats the room no doubt, but having a fan going does make a lot of difference. Without a fan or blower the room doesn’t heat up nearly as fast and the heat distribution isn’t as even. We did almost two days without power with our old fireplace insert. We were definitely glad we had it, though it wasn’t nearly as good as with the blower. Having a small generator or even some battery powered fans would probably help quite a bit. We wired our house so we can plug in a generator and run the fireplace blower, forced air system blower and a few key circuits right from our breaker panel.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Smart idea! Do you have to use the forced air blower system if you have fire burning in your fireplace or can you keep it off without ducts overheating?

Nope - we can use the fireplace without any fans, either fan independently or both of the fans going together. It can’t overheat the way it’s setup.

BARILOCHE VILLA LA ANGOSTURA SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES USHUAIA A R G E N T I N A

I assume the damper is automatic. It may not be electronic though but I’m not sure. The handle on the right controls the air flow in. Move the lever left is wide open for maximum combustion. Once it’s going if you want to slow down the combustion rate you slide it to the left. I believe that is when the damper kicks in based on the temperature. I’m not sure if it works with the power off. I would imagine it just opens up completely if it doesn’t work so you can still use the fireplace without flooding your house with smoke. We have our fireplace hooked up to our back up generator circuits so if our power goes out for a long time we can fire up the generator. I did find this one a dealers website: “The Waterloo’s smart air control system (patented) has been specifically designed to optimize combustion efficiency. Once the appliance is on and running, the combustion rate must be slowed down by manually closing the primary air damper. Then, when the system detects that the optimum combustion temperature has been reached, it automatically closes the second primary air damper and adjusts the secondary air control. Once the system is closed, it is possible to modulate the level of combustion by adjusting the auxiliary air control.”

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Thanks for the quick response. Ya it seems like magic, but I’ll take it! Thanks for taking the time to look into this. Enjoy that fireplace this winter!

Glad it was helpful! I’ll do my best to answer your questions: Ours measures right about 50 feet from the fireplace to where it joins the forced air ducts at the furnace. I don’t think there is a hard cutoff - just the longer you go, the more heat loss you’ll probably have. We had to use that flex vent which isn’t the best for airflow but it’s still moving at about 15 f/s well over 100 degrees where it enters the forced air system. The heat slowly migrates up through the vents but we do need to use the furnace blower at times to help circulate the air everywhere in the house. That’s probably what they mean - the fan on the Valcourt system is only going to push the air so fast or so far without some additional help. Depending on how your forced air system is routed, if you need to push the air further, you could potentially add a second in-line fan? Our house was a really old farm house that we renovated and added on, so our duct work is a little crazy. As for cost… I’ll have to dig see if I can find anything. I think 5-6k was ballpark for the fireplace and flue installed. But we had the chimney framed and built specifically for this fireplace…. If you’re converting an old chimney I guess there could be some additional cost. I’m sure framing up our entire chimney and the stonework and the fireplace was well over $12k. I’ll see if I can find our paperwork.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily thanks for the input. We put a deposit down yesterday on the FP10 and decided to pass on the forced air. Our plan is to install, then if we need to move warm or cold air around, we can do so with some powered venting through crawl space or unfinished attic. Another question came up with respect to the Fresh Air Vent.....any expeirnece/opinion to share? Our home is not air tight, I'm thinking a Fresh Air vent would be a positive addition.

Sorry! I didn’t see your reply. Very cool about the purchase, you’ll like it a lot. I honestly don’t know enough about the fresh air vents to answer your question though.

BARILOCHE VILLA LA ANGOSTURA SAN MARTIN DE LOS ANDES USHUAIA A R G E N T I N A

Neat! This is not an insert that would go into an existing masonry chimney though it is similar in many ways. This has to go into new construction. We had a Jotul insert in our old masonry chimney before which we really liked. You are right - the efficiency of this type of fireplace or an insert is significantly higher than a regular masonry fireplace even one with glass doors. Happy burning to you too! 🔥

If we keep it going the small fan is enough to circulate the heated air pretty good. The ducts stay warm and just that slow continual air movement does pretty good. We’ll let the furnace kick in occasionally to help when it gets really cold. The problem if we run the furnace fan it draws cold air from the basement which isn’t good either. I’ve thought about maybe adding another electric blower fan on the same switch as the fireplace kit fan, but it hasn’t been a big priority because it seems to be doing fine. Probably depends a lot on ductwork, house layout, etc

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Excellent thank you.

So the damper actually is what controls how much smoke goes up the flue (chimney pipe). On this model there is a lever on the bottom right as you face the fireplace. Slide it all the way to the left, and make sure the smaller lever underneath it is pushed in and that’s full open. Slide to the right and that is medium. Slide right and pull the smaller lever out - that’s low. The air coming in to the fireplace is automatic. There is a small tube inside the fireplace on the bottom front/left of center. If you still have problems finding it if you IM us a photo at our Facebook page The Northwoods Family we’ll see if we can help you.

That’s so hard to answer honestly. It really depends on the layout of your house, ductwork and if you keep the fireplace going. Our house is about 2600sq Ft, but it’s been added on to and the ductwork is kind of crazy. It heats our upstairs, away from the fireplace pretty good if we keep the fireplace running all the time. But then we have one room that is on the main floor and over the old fieldstone foundation, and that room is always cold. I’ve also thought about adding another blower motor further in our ducts to help / because the fan isn’t as powerful as the one on our furnace. So that’s a limiting factor. The heat is there but the fan power is only so great. We look at it as a way to really reduce our prone costs (we figure it saves us at least 50% on our propane bill) and to enjoy the fireplace and radiant heat when we are in our great room. Sorry I can’t answer that better! It just really depends on your setup.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily thanks so much for your time in replying and your help - it's very much appreciated!

There is a forced air blower kit from Valcourt you can add.

We choke it all the way down when we want a really long burn… B2? Lever to the right and then pulled out. You have to have a good hot fire first, and we’ll let the fire burn with the flew full open for a few minutes before we choke it down. We’ll have a pile of hot coals in the morning usually. Of course the wood matters a lot. If we want it to burn all night we need to use oak, walnut, or other hardwoods. We can’t do that with pine. During the day we keep it burning all open or on medium depending on how cold it is and how good our wood is. We’ve never used a log holder. The problem as I understand with log holders is they allow more air to get at the fire - making it burn faster and less efficiently. I would be willing to bet if you get rid of the log holder, and just burned on the bottom of the fireplace you’d get much longer burn times. Mainly we load logs N/S at night so as they burn, they don’t roll into the doors. We seem to be able to fit more wood inside that way too. We don’t load it up like this every night, just the really cold ones. The only time we burn with the doors open is when we are starting the fire or trying to revive it. Usually then we’ll just crack the door for a few minutes. Try it without the log holder and let us know if that makes a difference!

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Thanks sooo much for getting back to me. I have been looking for a good answer. Ill let you know. Have a Happy New Year.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily Just letting you know. It worked WAAAYYY better without the log holder and it actually was still blowing air when i got up this morning with some hot coals still present. Thanks so much for the info.

Not a dumb question at all. These are stone flats. It’s a “class A” chimney - it was framed, and then clad in OSB. A metal pipe runs up the center. Then they attach a steel mesh to the OSB, cover with grout and then stick the stones on. They’re real stones that have been cut flat on the back side (or corner pieces) that then stick on with the grout when it dries. It’ll hold plenty of weight. The outside of the chimney is even bigger and has more stone. This is what we used - ours is called tobacco fieldstone buechelstone.com/product-category/building-stone-veneers/

You bet! Glad it was helpful!

Yes we do have a basement. It should if you keep it running. It cranks out a ton of heat, but it all depends how you distribute that heat.

It crossed our mind, but we actually don’t mind that it provides our basement some residual heat. If you can’t tell our house is a totally renovated old farm house, so we have some interesting basement stuff happening. We still have our old furnace so our ductwork is a little goofy - when the furnace goes we’ll do some rearranging. Our old living room above that crawl space is super cold. I’ve insulated the floors and we’re thinking about adding another heat duct and insulating the existing ones.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily, was the ability to hook this to the central heat unique to this product or was it something the installer did as a custom job? I looked at the specs for this unit online for more information and didn't see anything about being able to be tied into a homes central heating system.

@@theinternets7516 interesting. I bet they just winged it. Nothing hard about it, but no one wants to take on the liability of specifying it.

They basically do the same thing. An insert is for an existing masonry chimney, this is for new construction.

I don’t. Those are for reburning emitted gasses so everything in there gets burned off. They are self-cleaning.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily thank you most people wouldn't reply back

You’re welcome :) We try to get to all the comments and questions!

All depends on the wood of course, but if we have oak or black walnut which is common on our property, and we pack the thing full (60 lbs or so) and turn down the damper, it will burn all night (8-9 hours) and we’ll have good hot coals in the morning, the doors will still be too hot to touch in the morning.

@@TheNorthwoodsFamily thanks so much! I actually installed the unit this past fall. I’ve been burning black locust at best but only get about 6 hours. I guess I need to try and pack it completely and see how long it goes. If you get a chance would you be able to show me a picture of how much you load it with? Also are you loading N/S or E/W? Thanks so much, good to get some feedback from another user.

It does diminish the sound to have the doors fully closed but you’ll still hear the popping and crackling. It you want to hear it fully we just leave the doors slightly open - then we still have the glass blocking most of the exploding cinders while still enjoying the sounds of the fire. We then close them up when we need to walk away. Hope that made sense! 🔥☄️🔥

You are incorrect. Inserts are units that are retrofit into existing masonry fireplaces. This is a fireplace unit that was installed directly to a newly built wood stud frame. I previously had a Jotul insert which was installed into an old masonry fireplace. They may look the same from the outside, but the construction of the fireplace and how they are installed is entirely different.