We bought a gas fireplace insert from this store. I thought I'd leave a review for other people…read morelike me who saw his ad on craigslist and wondered if it was legit.
This is a little bit of a long story, but we actually have two gas fireplace inserts, one we bought at Rich's, and one we bought at Cascadia. I'm going to compare the experiences here, so you can see the difference.
About a year ago, we went to Rich's and bought a gas fireplace insert. They have a showroom with lots of sales people who can answer your questions. You can see all the stoves they sell and even get financing. We bought a gas insert there that works great. It has multiple settings for the flame, blower, and even has lights. It can be set up to work off a thermostat, and you have choices in what you want the surround, background, and logs to look like. It's also very radiant, so we hardly ever use the blower. We just turn the thing on and soon we're toasty.
Rich's set us up with their install people, who pulled the permits, ran the gas line, and did the electrical. They were easy to work with. They came as a team on install day and did the whole thing in a couple of hours. All total, we spent about $6500.
Now, I'm not here to review Rich's, I'm here to review Cascadia. I wanted to explain my Rich's experience so I could compare it with what you'll get from Cascadia.
$6500 was a lot of money to spend on a gas fireplace. I looked around online and found an ad on Craigslist for an insert + installation for $3000. I emailed the guy to find out what store they were and to see if I can come take a look at the fireplace in person. He emailed back and gave me directions.
Cascadia is a small storefront in North Bend. They don't really have a showroom to speak of, and when I told the guy that I was there because of the Craigslist ad, he took me to the back of the store and showed me the three fireplaces he had set up. He turned them all on and explained that they were the same BTU, but the cheaper one was less efficient. I could feel that the other two were more radiant, but they were $1000 more. We opted to get the cheap Craigslist one (although the others sounded like a good deal too).
We were set up with a local contractor to do the install. He came out with a partner a couple weeks later and did the work over the course of a day. We had paid for a remote but the installer didn't have it. I called Cascadia later, and was told that they would mail it to me. They did.
The fireplace itself is pretty simple: on, off, high, low, and a blower that you must turn on from the side of the unit. There is a remote control, but it's basically just for turning it off and on. There was no choice for log setting (at least I don't remember if there was a choice), and the background is just black (no fake bricks or anything). It doesn't work off a thermostat.
It's not as radiant as our first fireplace, so we use the blower more. It's set to heat the same amount of space, but I imagine it might use a little more gas. We just installed it, so we'll have to wait and see after it gets a bit more use.
I'm giving Cascadia 5 stars because the sales person was helpful and responsive. I asked a lot of questions about the fireplace we bought (why is it so cheap?), and he gave me satisfactory answers. I feel like a $3000 fireplace was a great deal, and exactly what we were looking for. We really don't need all the additional bells and whistles, just something that will reliably heat our space. If that is what you're looking for Cascadia is a great place.
