Do yourself a favor. Consider a wood stove instead.

I recently spent $4000 on a Hampton HI300 wood insert. The amount of heat this thing produces isn't even enough to offset the cost of running the blower. As far as I am concerned, this was a total waste of $4000.

For anyone to suggest that these inserts are good for anything other than looks is a total lie. I will make sure I tell everyone I ever come into contact with the rest of my life that wood stove inserts are a waste of money so they don't get out right robbed like I did.

We put an Avalon woodburning insert in our fireplace at our home in PA and it heated the entire house. We absolutely loved it. And with literally tens of thousands of inserts in place, they must be doing something right.

So maybe you just have the wrong size, or brand, that's all. What are your surface temps? They should be in the 500 to 600 degree range. If they're not, you've got to find out why. If they are, the insert's doing it's job, but you may be expecting more of it.

And it's interesting. We too had the blower on our insert, but we rarely used it. It seemed the house was colder when it was on, and warmer when it was off. No blower meant radiant heat where the walls and floors and furniturs got warm, and with the blower on, it just warmed the air.

When we moved to VT we didn't want a fireplace, so we installed a Regency woodstove and again, it heats the whole house. And we don't have a blower on it at all.