For no heat and the most realistic look I've seen, including the fact that the fireplace "sits" on the ground, I really like the Town and Country fireplace, but it's not cheap.

We had the Fireplace Xtradorinaire in the house we just sold. It put out so much heat you couldn't leave it on long. But, a beautiful and quality fp.

I have the Mendota Fireplace insert (FV44). It is a great fireplace. Yes, it is expensive but it puts out so much heat. Mine has the remote control thermostat and we have to turn the fan down to the lowest level to get the fireplace to run for any significant amount of time. The fan is much quieter than the Heat and Glo that it replaced. The Heat and Glow was a terrible fireplace. You had to stand in front of it to feel the heat at all. The Mendota heats the whole room and the dining room. The space is about 300 sq.ft with 14ft ceilings at the apex. I wanted the modern Mendota but ended up with a traditional because I wanted the heat output. I find that the logs look realistic.

Good luck!

We put in an Astria Scorpio. It is a traditional look and has the hi/lo and a fancy remote. I will say that this is one area where we did almost no research - I just went with my contractor's recommendation, so I can't give you a good comparison, but it looks nice and was quite reasonably priced (we have the 40" model, it was under $3k installed). I don't anticipate using it too frequently, but we wanted it for aesthetics and occasional use.

Don't know if they sell in Texas. They have a bunch of other models, I assume they are reasonably priced as well.

Town and Country make great realistic direct vent fireplaces. I just purchased the TC42. Very minimal surround and large opening. The piping can be pretty expensive depending on how far your run is.

I have a kozey heat bay port. Pretty nice for the price and maximizes the glass space. Some brands have big frames.

Thanks everyone! You've given me some brands to go look at and research. I think there's a showroom near Dallas that has a few different brands.

Lily'smom - we won't be doing electric. I saw a few in the showroom we were in and I didn't like them at all. I actually felt like the crackling sound was extremely distracting.

gthigpen - please report back on your result. As you've noticed, there seems to be a paucity of advice on this topic on gardenweb for some reason. I'm sure future browsers will appreciate it.

We're looking at Jotul right now. Specifically the GF 500 gas stove. It's a little difficult to find a dealer around here, but this one supposedly puts out a lot of heat.

We really love your floor plan. How many square feet is it and do you have a basement?

stanandlisa - Thank you! It's 3,492 and no it does not have a basement. We live in Texas and basements are not common here due to our heavy clay soil.

Just to close this out, we ended up picking a Montigo H42 direct vent fireplace. Still in install/construction mode so I can't speak to how it works yet, but it looks great and the price was right!

Please, please take a picture as you know we're installing a Montigo H38 direct vent fireplace. Do you have the brick look backing?

Will do! We do have the brick look backing but that part isn't installed yet.

Does the wood look "real"? I bought this one on faith and not having seen it in action. I hope it's ok, otherwise I'll get an antique screen for in front and pretend it doesn't exist. LOL.

Honestly, the logset is still in the cardboard box! I'll take it out and look at it tonight and tell you what I think. I did see it in the showroom before I ordered and I thought it looked fine. I didn't think it wasn't quite as good as the Mendota I was looking at but at 3X the cost, it wasn't that much better! :)

When you take it out, can you take a quick picture?

I hear you about the cost. Like you, if I was building in a cold area, I'd have put in the Town and Country fireplace even though it was 4x the cost of the Montigo, but for SW FL, I'm fine with this one.

cpartist - Well, the logs are unassembled in the box so my pics don't show much. I need to nail down our installer on when he's going to finish with the brick liner and logset. I promise to post pics when it's done!

OH those look pretty good. Thank you!

Is that the regular log set or the larger one? I got the HW.

It's the regular.

Gthigpen/cpartist--I know this is an old thread, but are you happy with the montigo? Would love to see pictures!

I'm very happy with the Montigo. Ours was just actually hooked up correctly very recently so we've only been using it a couple of weeks. We still don't have our stonework done, so it doesn't look that great. I'm hoping to finalize that stone very soon!

Edited to add a picture I had. Again, pretty basic with no stone and just sheetrock but you can see the brick, logset and flame.