Steps 1a, 3, 4, and 5 of the wood stove

So really the first step was cutting up all the branches around the house (some were growing into the side of the house and roof, some fell during storms, some were cut up by the streets dept. down our road, some dropped too many leaves and were punished :).   So over the last year I built this 4' tall by 12' long rack for stacking firewood, 1 piece deep.  See the little jig I have to cut the limbs?

In the first 4 days we've already made a dent in the scraps I collected.  Still waiting on a delivery of real firewood...
Step 3 was the installation.  Didn't get any of that...
Step 4 was cleaning out the ash dump of the fireplace -- probably 30 years of ashes from basement to 1st floor in this vertical dump that had a big cavity at the bottom.   The blower fans need electricity so I dropped an extension cord down the dump to get to the basement outlet.  I've probably cleaned out 40 gallons of ash by now, judging by the number of 5 gallon buckets and trashbags.   Even a couple bricks and chunk of concrete came down!  And a stick.  Was starting to wonder if I'd find any bones   :o

















Step 5: keep the fire going and enjoy :)




One of the snags was that the 'pro' came out twice didn't tell us the model we ended up with wouldn't fill the height of our opening :( so it's propped up on bricks. Probably should've gone with the bigger model. Better fit, better heat. But we'll get a custom piece made, painted black, to hide that part. Still need to remove the white paint from the rest of the bricks..

Steps 1 and 2 of the wood burning stove/insert

It's a work in progress.  I took off that gaudy paneling from 1954 and took out all of the fireplace stuff. They're trying to install it today!  The 6' wide brick face was a nice surprise, but it's covered in some kind of white paint (smoke sealant?  I dunno) which might be hard to get off with the rough brick surface...  That might be a summer job with all the ventilation req'd.

So after it's installed I'll post a pic or video.   I'll still  need to expose the brick and then re-do the shelving on the sides.  And figure out what to do for a mantel.  Here's a sneak at the stove we got (Jotul 350 'Winterport'):