We converted an attached garage to a "family room" when we lived in Ohio. Put in a wood stove -- an airtight, I can't for the life of me remember the name now but it might have been a Vermont Castings. Anyway, the first time we used it we used a half-dozen pieces of wood and drove the temperature in the room up to 90F. We had to use a fan to exhaust heat into the rest of the house. That was a GOOD stove!

We currently have two fireplaces, both of which have inserts. One insert, I'm told, is excellent and the other is junk. I'd like to rip out the junk one and turn the fireplace into a fireplace again, with glass doors and all that. However, in the four years we've been in the house we haven't had to use either one so it's not high on the priority list!