I've looked over a significant number of software companies and services 
that offer web survey capabilities, but there are so many that I don't
have the time to analyze all that data, and I'm not looking for
another list of companies offering that kind of service.

There are also thousands of marketing research companies who will do
various kinds of surveys, many with large price tags.

Can anyone tell me of an approach to market surveying on the web that
isn't exorbitantly expensive, doesn't take a degree in software
engineering to figure out, is effective, and yields dependable
results?  I need a concrete methodology that will work, when applied
to something like the following scenario.

"The feasibility of a survey homeowners from across the country to find out:
Home location
Home price/value
Age of Home
Fireplace - none? wood? gas?
Room location of fireplace
Facing (what goes immediately around fireplace--natural stone, tile, rock, other)
Mantel or Cabinet"

Again, I'm looking for a reliable method that will yield data from a
scenario like the one above.  I don't think this can be simply a
survey tied to a fireplace website, because someone coming there is
probably looking for a fireplace, which would mean they already have
an agenda of some sort.

Perhaps you could search multiple listings of homes for sale in
several large small and rural locals. All the information would
typicaly be available with little bias, except a description of the
fire place facing would often be omitted, but you can make a good
guess from photos that sometimes show the fire place. Some bias will
occur no matter how you do it IMHO = in my humble opinion.
 I live in Jacksonville, Florida where homes under 1000 square feet
rarely have fire places, but mid price and costly houses, condos and
apartments seem to have them almost as often as in cold climates. We
added a wood stove instead of a fire place, and I love it.   Neil