A Lopi Gas Stove (and HVAC)

 I can't sleep so here I am making an update.

The HVAC, or lack of, saga continues. We can't find anyone to help with heating for our home. It's mid September now and the temps have already been dropping into the 40s at night. Hal has switched from water based baseboard heat back to a forced air ducted system using geothermal instead of hot air heated by propane or electricity now. He's been reading up on how to construct sheet metal ducts and watching YouTube. It's annoying tedious work but we can probably do that. Unfortunately, after meeting with the guy at Alpena Supply yet again, (I think it's the 3rd time) they will not sell us the unit because we are not licensed refrigeration contractors and it voids the warranty. So we are stuck unless we can get a guy to install it. We've got another guy coming out to survey the situation but he's already said, as they all have, he is very busy. If we can just get him to install the freaking heat pump and connect it up to our ductwork once it's in, we may get somewhere. We'll find out tonight after he gets off work and comes over.

However, last week, my friend Tom and I went for a drive to Fairview and then out to Gaylord to look at gas heat stoves. The Fairview guy would sell us a floor model at a discount otherwise we couldn't get the Hearthstone till late December or January. We had the same problem with the Regency we looked at in Ossineke. I wasn't holding out much hope for the Gaylord store, but lo and behold these guys had their act together and had stocked up. Of the stove that I am interested in they had all 3 colors available. I could have left with one that day if I'd been driving a truck. 

I went home, discussed it with Carl and the next morning called them up and bought one. It's a Lopi, it's the most expansive off the ones I looked at, of course, but it does everything. The problem with the Regency (the cheapest one) was the heating range wasn't very wide so it would have to be shut off if the room became too hot. The Hearthstone was a little better but not by much. Either way, neither is available and it's very possible this will be the only heat we have in the house for awhile yet.

The Lopi has a nice temperature range and 2 burners so if it gets too warm the rear burner can actually be shut off so we can still have a flame. Plus everything is included; the remote control/thermostat, the blower, the fancier embers which look very real. Of the gray, brown enamel and patina bronze color we went with the bronze. we'll pick it up at the end of the week when it's not raining. This one stove and the ductwork cost as much as all my kitchen appliances put together. It will heat up to a 1500 sq ft room, ours is 815 so it ought to work nicely.

Lopi Berkshire in Patina Bronze

A wood burning stove would have bee much cheaper as it's only a box inside a cast iron housing but Hal doesn't want the mess or the need to chop anymore wood. He has a point as we are getting older but I will miss the crackling sound or real wood burning, I'll have to get a recording for the stereo maybe!