I'll start this post by saying we've just been plugging away here. I'm still busy with the garden and cheese making. Dan has been busy on the stove. After installing the smoke by-pass, his next step was to put in a clean-out door. So at last I have something to show you.
The clean-out door is a necessity for removing any ash or residue inside the stove. Last year when we designed the layout, we decided to put the clean-out in the back of the stove, which is part of the wall in the front bedroom.
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Originally, the house had double back-to-back fireplaces. This is where it was in the front bedroom (now my big loom room). Photos of the original bedroom and fireplace here. |
Dan tore the entire bedroom wall out last summer. We wanted to remove the combustible
tongue-and-groove wall and also remodel the closet.
To get a good look inside the stove, Dan cut a nice size hole in the
bricks.
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| What you see inside the stove is the core (firebox). |
Based on efficiency, we had a feeling one of the bricks had fallen off the and
sure enough, it had. Dan had enough room to repair the brick and vacuum out the thermal mass.
Most clean-out doors measure about 8-inches by 8-inches. I suppose that's
adequate for sweeping out ash, but for our stove design, we were glad to find
one measuring 12-inches by 12-inches. Plenty good for inspecting the inside
and using the shop vac to clean it out.
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| Door frame in place |
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| Door done. |
We found it on Amazon, the link is here.
So that's done! Dan has one more improvement he wants to make, so more on that sometime. First fire is usually mid-October, so we'll be ready.
6 comments:
I always look forward to the first fire of the "season".
Me too, Ed. Hopefully this one will be more pleasant than last years. :)
Leigh, I suppose I never really gave thought to how the ashes were getting out; I assumed from the front. Now I know more.
TB, it depends on the design of the stove. With our previous soapstone stove, the ashes were removed through the front as you imagine. With our wood cookstove, the ashes fall through a grate into an ash pan below the firebox. Since the chimney is in a different location than the firebox in the masonry stove, a separate clean-out door is needed.
Can’t wait for fire weather. Much better than the heat.
Mr O, hello and welcome! I so agree with you about wood heat. The best way I can describe it is comforting. :)
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