Have my eye on a used Buck fireplace insert with blower - looks pretty heavy duty

noticed there is no shortage of them for sale (various brands) on the used market which leads me to believe people put them in and get tired of dealing with them

I'm putting it in as a backup heat alternative.

Anything I need to know or consider before I do this?

Wire your flue open so you don't end up with a smokey house and a hot insert.

Had an Ashley style insert at the deer camp.

Worked really well….

Until the door glass got cracked.

Smoke up the place until it got to burning good.

Local glass place wanted like $200 or so for a small tempered glass.


Fug that. Took the front end loader and dumped it in the gulley….

good call

I've seen some where you run a flexible pipe down the fireplace which results in taking the flue out and possible chiseling out some brick liner. The one I am looking at is designed to just feed up into the flue

They Buck stoves are good solid stoves, so long as you keep coal out of them.
I think they’re, or were, out of one of the Carolina’s. They built a LOT of them. A steel company I worked for at one time had a third shift dedicated to nothing but shearing buck stove parts for over two years.

Insert would help providing it had blower fan, otherwise all the heat goes up the chimney. I prefer a cabinet style wood stove myself.

yea I'm only considering the ones that extend out and have a blower

As long as it has a built in grate with an ash pan it should do the trick

People are getting newer ones for the tax credits that expire 31 Dec.

won't be long

I see 20* overnight coming as soon as Sunday

I've personally installed four in various homes:
Regency 2400
Pacific Energy (medium size...don't know model)
Regency 1100
Older Regency (still EPA approved)

Two were in heatilator chimneys...I had to gut those to run the liner.
Other two were in masonry chimneys...dropped the liner down from the top with no issues.

If I were you, I'd make sure the stove was made after 1990 or so and is therefore certified to that era of EPA rating. Anything prior will be in inefficient wood hog. I'd also insist on a full length stainless liner in the chimney, unless your masonry chimney isn't enormous and therefore will draft well and quickly.

Pacific Energy stoves work fine but make a lot of heat-up and cool-down noise. The newer regency stoves are awesome. Older one is fine but newer one is a bit better from a slow burn and wood consumption standpoint.

Put in a Pellet stove insert, I have a Harman Iron that I’ve had for 12 years, has all the thermostat and blowers built in. I decided after knees went bad done toting wood, my Dad has a free standing in his house on ranch here also, they both do about same output, I buy him two pallets a year and I get one, he 92 years old and his house is way to hot for me. I payed 285.00 a pallet for top hard wood Pellets this year, as long as we are here in house and haven’t gone to bed , they are on, central heat at night, we have gotten down to 20 below last two years, fifty pound bag last two days of zero degrees.

I heated a 2200 sq. ft house with a Buck stove . Mine had a blower with a thermostat. The hotter the temp faster the fan would run .

Load it up with wood and adjust the draw and it will run you out of the room . I ran ceiling fans to circulate the air through the house .

I always run ceiling fan in reverse when using wood stove. Pulls the heat down from ceiling and circulates as Rick n Tenn said.

quote=Jiveturkey]I always run ceiling fan in reverse when using wood stove. Pulls the heat down from ceiling and circulates as Rick n Tenn said.[/quote]

Same here. I got a Northern Tool special because it was the only one that would fit, but I went ahead and cut out the whole old firebox.

Hardest part was shoving the flue liner down the flue. We did it from the top.

Way less wood, way more heat.

https://m.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200832985_200832985

What does your insurance say about the idea?

Do it you won't regret it. I like heating with wood. I have a free standing Earth Stove that's 40 years old still works like a champ. I burn right at 4 cords a year. Make sure it's an air tight.

it is a good place for an external flue control lever. not sue that they make those anymore..

I've got a double sided fireplace in the living room. The brickwork above the fireplace is laid in a manner that allows heat to flow out between the spaces in the bricks. I fabricated a finned aluminum heat sink above the vents and attached it to the mantle on both sides above the vent work. Then I mounted a pair of 3 speed vortex fans on one end of each mantle to distribute heat throughout the house.

I lit it up for the first time two nights ago when the temperature dropped into the 20s. I allowed the furnace to get the house up to 66 degrees then turned the furnace off. The fireplace took the house up to 71 degrees and held it there for the rest of the night.

It's not as efficient as an insert. You have to keep putting the wood to it. But wood around here is the cost of a chainsaw. There's dead fall all over the place and it's free if you want to process it. A big walnut tree across the road blew down back in the spring and had the road blocked. I cut it up into manageable pieces then drug it up into my yard with my old 8N. I worked on it for a couple of days and provided myself with enough firewood to hold me over for most of the winter.

I burn most anything. I've been eradicating honeysuckle from my place for several years. Any of it that's over an inch in diameter gets put in the wood pile. About eight or ten sticks of honeysuckle thrown on the fire will raise the temperature of the house two degrees in a matter of minutes.

I've got 800 gallons of propane in my tank and about four ricks of firewood piled up from my spring cutting.

I don't plan on being cold this year.

Changed my wood fueled fire place with a natural gas insert w/ thermostat and blower. Almost like a second furnace. Battery backup on blower if electricity goes out, but little chance of that with my whole house generator. Nice glass doors, adjustable flame. so much nicer than hauling wood into the living room and hauling ash out.
The older you get, you start to look for easier things to have.

so I ended up buying a Vestal insert, 80's era. Heavy duty but its a "slammer".

I toyed with the idea of just installing it as is but after reading up on it, there was no shortage of "you'll burn your house down" experts out there so I went ahead and ordered a liner with insulation and a flue adapter. I need to retain the damper so I'm going to have to work with it a bit. There goes my AR money for awhile.

The hard part is going to be getting the existing flue out and chiseling out a 6" hole.

But doing it right means I can burn anytime I want and still sleep at night. Whether I bought a new one or a used one, I'm going to have to do all that to get it right.

At the end of the day I'm saving over $1K buying an older used one, and since its not going to be my primary form of heat, just emergency, I'm not really too wrapped around the axles about how efficient it is.

I'm going to get started on trying to take that flue out today.

Lopi pretty good Insert ..

Mine is Two Years Old ..

Blower takes awhile to come on..

Had to replace Catalytic Insert but it was covered under the Warranty..

I believe it was a result of the Installer ..
No Problem Since

These are Heavy Inserts

What type of flue are you going to take out?

no idea, the house was built in 74