Pittsburgh Permaculture

Andrea and I recently decided to put in a wood stove but as easy as that sounds, a lot of work went into installing the stove and ensuring the fireplace surround would be appropriate. The following pictures show you some of the process we went through.

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Fireplace before

The fireplace before refacing and installing the wood stove.

Fireplace before close-up

A close-up of the fireplace before refacing and installing the wood stove.

Partially re-tiled fireplace

The floor tiles are almost completed while the thinset mortar dries on the vertical surface.

Vertical tiling

Tiling the vertical surface of the fireplace.

Laying out tiles

It helps to lay out the tiles prior to the installation, especially for the vertical surface.

Refaced fireplace

The fireplace after being refaced with slate.

Fireplace bricks removed

Some fireplace bricks and the damper were removed to fit the 6" flexible liner.

Chimney liner installation

The stainless steel chimney liner being installed.

Finished Fireplace

The fireplace with a new slate face and a soapstone wood stove from the Woodstock Soapstone Company.

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We had a fireplace that had once been wood-burning, I knew this because there was an old damper and a clean-out shoot below, but had been first converted to gas-burning logs and finally to a nonfunctional fireplace. Once I broke the seal on the old damper and took a look up the chimney, I knew it was going to be possible to add a stainless steel liner and hookup a wood stove. I could tell because it was a straight flue (I could see sky when looking up the chimney) and the existing terracotta tile was in good shape.

The most time consuming part of installing the wood stove was refacing the fireplace surround. We wanted to make it all look better but also needed to extend the fireproof base so that we would be following building codes for wood stoves. In the pictures above you can see how we simply coated the old bricks with thinset mortar to smooth out the surface so it would be appropriate for tiling. What you can’t see in these pictures is how we built up the base by laying down a bed of thinset and putting a cut-t0-fit piece of cement board down, screwing it against the floor.

We were excited about the slate because it looks great, it’s natural, it was pretty cheap and it adds to the functionality of the overall system. The slate helps by adding thermal mass, which you may have read about in my previous blog about rocks in the garden. In this case, the slate adds bulk which can buffer the heat of the stove, absorbing the heat when stove is really cooking and giving off heat even after the fire is out. In fact, this is also why our stove is made out of two inches of soapstone all around.

Once we finished the tile and grout, we had the chimney guys come drop a liner down the chimney. We had our friend, Dave, fabricate an angle iron base-surround which was slightly taller than the base so that it provides a metal lip, keeping ashes and embers from spilling out on to our wood floors. The next step was getting the stove into place and hooking up the stovepipe. When picking a stove, make sure it is an EPA certified wood stove. Our stove has a catalyst which helps get more heat out of the wood and reduce emissions.

There is a lot to this and I left out a lot of details, but I hope you can get an idea of whats involved with installing a wood stove. It is a great way to start moving to a more local fuel for heating your house, which is, arguably, better for the environment.

If you have any questions about this project, please feel free to comment below.