The Wood Stove

The very first project we undertook was to add a wood stove in the downstairs family room. Our stove is an old Lopi brand stove that needed a lot of cleaning. Our stove is not very picky about the quality of the wood burned, compared to more modern stoves .

First we had to clean up the outside of the stove. Lots of elbow grease and long hours got the wood stove looking good. Luckily the door gaskets were still in fine shape.

With the stove ready to go, the next step was to prepare the area where the wood stove would sit. We built a frame of heavy duty angle iron and poured a pad of cement as a base. We covered this with porcelain tile to provide a sturdy platform for the stove. We moved the platform into place and set the stove down on top to get final measurements for placing the stove pipe. With a below grade installation, we needed to cut a hole through the block wall of the basement for the pipe, which would then run up the back outside wall of the house. Cutting the hole was quite a chore!

I don’t remember anymore exactly how long it took to get everything done with the stove, but I do know that the first use was one of the coldest days in January 2000.