We had a test fire the other day to see if our smoke by-pass worked. Success! It's going to take some figuring out in terms of judging when the thermal mass is heated enough to close it, but that will have to wait. It's still too warm outside to heat the house more than it already is. But by opening and closing the damper we could make some assessments.
One of those assessments were a few smoke leaks in the mortar between the bricks. We noted these last year but waited to figure out what to do. One option was to repoint the brickwork, which involves touching up the mortar between all of the bricks. Dan wasn't too keen on this. The other option was to plaster the entire stove. This would deal with any small leaks and also give the stove an entirely different look.
We considered covering the brickwork with mortar last year, but I liked the look of the brick so we left it. Experience has an amazing way of changing one's mind, however.
Here's the stuff Dan is using.
 |
| Structo-Lite. Dan found it at Ace Hardware for about $26 for 50#. |
Structo-Lite contains gypsum plaster and perlite, has good insulation value, and is suitable for high heat applications.
No comments:
Post a Comment