We are looking for a wood-burning fireplace insert. Size isn’t really an issue. Our fireplace is huge. We’d like to heat at least 1200 SF but 1600 SF would be nice.
We want a rustic look, since we live in a log cabin; simple because our fireplace is massive stone work with wood beams and doesn’t need additional dressing up. Black is fine, we don’t want chrome or brass or whatever other metals are available.
We want reliable and as green as possible.
We also want inexpensive. Yes, I know we’re asking a lot. We’d really like to not spend more than $1500 and we’d prefer more in the $1000 or under range.
What are your experiences, recommendations, and warnings?
i think you might need to double your amount you will spend.
to heat that area you would use a blower in the insert to extract and distribute the heat. so you would need an electrical run to the insert.
they also use outside combustion air so you would a air vent (4 inch) to the insert through the fireplace surround (back or side wall of the fireplace).
For just the insert? From the ones I’ve looked at so far, they seem to run from 1-2k.
i didn’t shop. just took a look at one place and spotted some prices.
Last year, we got one of these (or one very similar) for our basement fireplace. I can’t recall exactly what it cost since we bought a pellet insert at the same time, but I’m pretty sure it was under $2K installed, and that included a stainless steel liner for the chimney. Our flue is old and in pretty bad shape. We had a plug close to the fireplace, but we needed to use an extension cord to run the fan. Ours has an automatic option for the fan so it won’t turn on till it reaches a certain temp, and even after the fire burns down, it’ll keep running till it gets below a certain temp. It’s a small insert, so we can’t load a lot of wood into it, but it’s easy to tend and it works great. If you get a larger insert, you should be able to heat your house easily.
We have found that with our pellet stove upstairs, it helps to have another fan to blow the warm air to the far end of the house. But we like our bedrooms cooler, so our living area stays very comfortable, and we can still sleep under a pile of blankets as we like. 
We’ve been looking at Regency. We like their Hearth Heater in particular. We also like our bedroom cooler because we’re both snugglers. Other than the bedrooms and bathroom, the rest of the house is one big open space, with very high ceilings (we have a loft over the dining room/kitchen but the area over the living room is just high ceiling). We’ll be installing ceiling fans to push the heat down.