Front Room Remodel: Back of the Masonry Stove

To the left of the closet, a coal burning fireplace once stood.

Front bedroom fireplace when we moved in, May 2009.

It stood back-to-back with the living room fireplace. We tore them both out when we built the woodstove alcove for our soapstone woodstove.

 

The brick wall is the back of the woodstove alcove.

When we built the masonry stove, the back of the alcove became part of the heater's thermal mass.

The back of the masonry stove with the wall torn out.

But how were we going to finish that wall? For months, that was the subject of much brainstorming. As part of the stove's thermal mass, the bricks radiate a lot of lovely heat, so we wanted to leave that part exposed. The biggest question was what to do about the arch. Treat it as a design feature? But how? We wanted to use something noncombustible, which added to the challenge. Dan used cement board above the bricks for the alcove, but he wasn't sure he wanted to do the same on this side. What were our other options?

Without going through our boring drawn-out thought process, I'll jump right to the finale and then follow up with a few details. 

Here it is now. The corrugated metal panel adds to the room's barn
motif yet isn't an insulator; it doesn't impede heat from the stove.

One of the design details I mentioned above was that we didn't want to block the heat on the sides of the stove. 

The principle of a masonry stove is that heat is produced in the firebox and held in an empty brick box (the thermal mass) which radiates warmth for at least half a day (and stays warm to touch for much longer). With a standard cast iron stove or fireplace, on the other hand, most of the heat goes up and out the chimney, and the room starts to cool off as soon as the fire goes out.

The exposed front and back of the stove do a fine job of radiating that warmth. On the sides, however, we have walls. In keeping with building code, there is an air space between the stove and the existing brick alcove wall, and there is another air space between the brick wall and room wall. Further, the room walls have a layer of heat-rated insulation. The challenge was to allow the warm air in those spaces to escape into the room rather than getting boxed in. 

The mantle post pretty much hides the gap, but doesn't fit snuggly against the bricks.

The other part of the challenge was that the bricks are uneven in the stove corners, because we never dreamed the back of the alcove would ever be exposed. Our solution was to cover the opening between the brick and the mantle post with screen, to allow the warmth to circulate out into the room

The screen is curved to make a column-like look.

Except I didn't like seeing the brick through the screen. So I painted the bricks black.

After painting the bricks.

I'm much happier with that. 

Here's a closeup of my decorative mantle bit.

Two of the wind chimes I made myself.

The one on the left is made from pirns. Pirns are what they call the bobbins for end-feed weaving shuttles. I don't use that kind of shuttle, so I thought this was a better use of them than storing them in a drawer. The one on the right is made with bells I originally bought for the goats' collars. Except the product description led me to believe they were bronze, which they aren't, these are just cheap metal with a bronze color coating. They've been sitting in a drawer too, and were perfect for an indoor wind chime.

Another section of the front room is done! Next I'll show you how Dan finished the front window wall. 

Front Room Remodel: Back of the Masonry Stove

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