Fire good. Finally.
Besides destroying junipers, one of the first things that came to mind was that upon occupation I needed warmth. For me, installing a wood burning stove was an obvious decision. Even before a single shingle was pulled the process to design, research, and purchase everything stove related was underway.
Lucky for me, the one square and well-built addition to the house was a firebox and chimney. Totally ineffective and certainly inefficient as a heating element, the structure itself would provide a sort of shell for the stove and piping. First to gut the old fireplace of its cheap glass facade and thin tile hearth.
Another stroke of luck was that the tile hearth sat on a concrete block that formed part of the base of the chimney. The concrete provides ample insulation under the stove and this meant that the new hearth wouldn't have to be so thick, important because clearance for the pipe out the back of the stove and into the firebox was an issue.
From there it was time to build the new hearth. A piece of plywood was cut to the size I wanted for the new hearth. My plan was to lay new tile but while running in the hills above the house at a certain elevation I started to notice flat stones of various shapes and sizes and, voila!, my plans changed. I returned later with the truck to forage.
I'm not a rock dude so as far as I can tell what I collected were some sort of rhyolite with traces of andesite, both extrusive results of some serious volcanic activity.
Wayne donated some pieces of fir for the frame that he cut with a nice beveled edge at his shop. I cut the pieces to length joined together with a miter joint and nailed the frame to the plywood.
The stones were set to the plywood with cement then a day or two later the gaps were filled in with grout and the help of a pastry bag. I liked the uneven texture of the stones and wanted to maintain that so I only leveled four stones for the legs of the stove.
The next task was the pipe. I managed to wrap and tape insulation around its length, haul the entirety of it up on the roof (pre-snow), and stuff it down the chimney all by myself. It was soon apparent--of no fault of my own--that I was short six feet of pipe which had to be reordered with a connecting collar. Reordering a week before Christmas meant that there was no Christmas fire.
The new pipe arrived as did help to stuff the extended length back down the chimney. A 500-pound stove was wrestled onto the hearth and the pipe was wrestled onto stove. The frame was stained. Wood was split and stuffed into the stove and now the stove provides warmth and beauty and with every log burned I feel more and more comfortable here.
