laynes69- No sales pitch. Just willing to let cityevader pick my brain if so desired. If you want a sales pitch and you are in my area, I would be willing to try to sell you some of our property maintenance services, sell you some mulch, top soil, day lillies, etc, maybe plow your drive, or sweep your parking lot, fertilization program, etc. Just a satisfied end user. I went with this unit as I have less invested than what it would cost me to put a chimney into my house. 1/4 the cost of a dedicated OWB. No mess in the house. Bought it with hopes of being a whole house unit realistically expecting it to supplement the 90% efficiency natural gas furnace we have. It has done more than that so far. Haven't turned the furnace on yet. I have had the house as hot as 78 degrees last year when I was figuring it out. Yes, as with any wood burning heater there is a learning curve. Have to figure out when to load, how to load, etc. There is a damper which once you figure out the temperature you like your house it pretty much never gets moved. I think hovering around 69-72 degrees is plenty warm. No sense in burning anymore wood than I need to. I am not trying to pick any fights or sell anything. I just think this is a nice unit in the right application. I call it the compromise between OWB and indoor unit.
yukiginger- You are right on the money. I have $2100 invested including the flu pipe, wiring, and cold air returns.
The modifications I am going to make to better heat the upstairs have begun. Better insulation (actually just adding more as I was pretty thin in the attic), eventually windows will help, and putting a couple ceiling to floor ducts to allow natural flow of heat upward will help. Our house was added onto and this kinda screws up the flow of air through the house. I will also be adding a ceiling fan in the one room which has the inlet to push the warm air down and into the other rooms. Our house had a 10x12 breezeway which was opened up the full depth of the house making it 10x30. In order to do so and have the necessary structural support, when we took out the old exterior wall of the house we ran a 15" header the full 30' depth with a couple pillars as well in between rooms. THis traps 300 sq ft of heat in the header area which we will combat with the ceiling fan.