What’s been holding up the wood stove install was two things: stovepipe and hearth.  At my brother’s suggestion, we decided to forgo a pretty hearth and just temp in something that would be safe and quick.  With all the jacking up and hammering left to do around here, probably a good idea.

As for the stove pipe, after finally picking a location that would allow a diagonal stove install on the first floor, I figured out the components needed.  We decided to go with Excel pipe, even though it’s significantly more expensive, because it has a lifetime warranty and meets the much stricter Canadian chimney-fire survival codes.  No chimney fires are going to burn down our house!  (If we are using the stove right, this shouldn’t be much of a risk anyway … but perhaps for the next owners.)

On Friday I picked up the last pipe component at Midgley’s in Eugene.  It was time to begin the actual install.  I laid out where the chimney would intersect the second floor, and cut a hole.  The location will add a 2.5 foot bump-out into the master bedroom, but makes for a much better first floor position.  On the diagonal, the fire will face the whole living room.  No other position would be as attractive and still keep the chimney on the back of the house.

On Saturday, we screwed down two layers of Hardibacker to form the hearth.  Robin’s parents came by, and Steve and I moved the stove into position using his motorcycle jack.  (If there’s any easier way to move 450lbs, I can’t imagine it.)  Unfortunately, the leg bolt-holes on the back of our stove were tapped wrong (or rather got some welding slag in them after being tapped).  The stove spent the night on the jack.

On Sunday, my brother came by to lend a hand (AKA “end up doing all the hard parts”).  He re-tapped the bolt holes (I need to get one of those sets) and with new bolts we attached the legs.  Then we added 2×6 blocking to the floor joists to install the pipe support.

The pipe support was then added from above.  It has a heat shield to protect the floor members, and is designed to protrude 3 inches below the finished ceiling to cut down on radiant energy off the pipe.  The pipe is 6″ inside diameter, 8″ outside diameter.  The floor support only requires a 10″ hole, but all framing above that require 12″ rough openings.

Next, we dropped a plumb bob to find the roof penetration point.  I had worked this out ahead of time to avoid intersecting a rafter.  Unfortunately, I made the flawed assumption that our rafters are plumb.  If we installed the chimney plumb, it would have been sitting directly against a rafter, and since we don’t want that (2″ air gap required) we decided to install the chimney at a slight angle (2″ off plumb over 12′).  When we re-roof next year we’ll straighten out the chimney.  Cutting the roof hole with a sawzall was a quick, although unpleasant job.  Skip sheathing, cedar shakes, composite shingles .. all of them tried to fly in my mouth and eyes.

Next Greg climbed our very steep roof.  We sent the flashing and shingles up to him on a rope tow.  The chimney also partially intersected a roof vent, so he pulled that out too and then tacked everything back up with new shingles.  Greg’s done a lot of roofing, so he said it might be ugly but it would be water tight. I thought it looked pretty good too.  To add insult to injury, it started pouring down rain at the end.

Back inside, we screwed together the actual chimney sections, and pushed them up through the flashing.

Then it was back up on the roof for Greg, this time in the dark and carrying a storm collar, the chimney cap, and a caulk gun.  Did I mention it was dark?  Robin and I were on the ground with shop lights and flashlights trained on Greg up on the roof.  Needless to say, the few cars that drove by our house at this time did so very slowly.  Thanks for all the help Greg!!

Later that night I added the radiation shield on the second floor ceiling, moved the stove back into position and set it down, installed the adjustable chimney length off the top of the stove, and reinstalled all the firebricks we had removed.  Finally, we lit a fire and laid around in total exhaustion.

Like most projects, unplanned “issues” complicated the process and wasted time.  Since most of our issues this time were caused by quality control problems with the stove and chimney, I feel the need to complain.  Don’t get me wrong, I think the stove and chimney are well made and should last a long time, but when you spend about $3600 on a woodburning equipment, you expect it to be flawless.

• Stove leg bolt holes poorly tapped
• Stove upper firebrick would not seat properly (slightly too wide)
• Stove door gasket did not fully contact door frame (later fixed by Midgley’s)
• Insulated chimney instructions vague and incomplete
• Insulated chimney missing ‘provided’ screws
• Double wall chimney slightly out of round and obnoxious to adjust
• Double wall chimney supplied the wrong screws (or wrong instructions)

Ah, the joys of home improvement.  Finally, there were too many pictures to post them all, so I’m including a gallery here at the end with more.

My Mom and Dad came by along with Jessica for a chat. Little did they know that Dad would end up helping put the wood stove into place. Everything went well until the last two legs were to be put on. They wouldn’t go on right so Lee’s brother is going to bring a thread tap up tomorrow to see if that will help. Us ladies sat around and chatted while freezing. It was like watching our own reality TV show. Jessica suggested putting a tea light into the stove so it would look like it was burning already. Look through the gallery of pictures for the comments to see what is going on.

While writing code this evening for work, it occurred to me that my desk environment might seem humorous to someone who didn’t know me:

Yes, that would be an oil lamp and an EEEPC 1000.  Presently, we own more oil lamps than computers.  Does that mean anything?

We have had deer hanging around the last few days. They came up close to eat apples from the tree. Mostly we haven’t seen them even though I know that they are around. In the back field you can see deer trails and a couple of places where they bed down for the night. Looks like big crop circles.

For those who remember our post regarding a mouse poop shower, recent developments have make that one seem like showering in a spring rain.  Our living room and front bedroom have plywood ceilings oddly enough.  That was apparently a quick wall-covering method in the days of slow (and expensive) lath and plaster.

Unfortunately, before the stove can go in, the plywood ceiling must go out.  The good thing about tearing out plywood is that it comes out in large sections.  The bad thing about plywood is that it comes out in large sections, like this:

When I tore down the first section, a plume of dirt, mouse poop, shredded insulation/nesting material, and mummified mice followed.  By the time I got to a respirator, Robin was calling down from upstairs that she could “smell mouse poop” in the air.  “You mean that general haze?  Yeah, sorry about that.”

So, once again, a deceptively simple project turns messy … literally.

Don’t you just want to hug him? That is before he rips you to ribbons. Jasper looks very evil in this picture. Maybe it’s because I am taking his picture and he only likes Lee. Hmm, maybe he is trying to hypnotize Lee with his eyes.

Lee ripped out the wood paneling in preparation for the stove. While Lee was doing that he had two curious animals wondering what he was doing. First it was Edgar looking through the stairwell. Then it was Jasper wanting to know what Lee was up too.

Here is the bared stairwell.

Edgar got some spots he wouldn’t stop licking. After going to the vet for some medications he got put in an old paint shirt and Lee’s underpants.

Every time Lee goes about trying to do a job all I hear is how he never can find the right tool. I of course always tell him that if he put it back in the same place he might know where they were at. It’s the same story all the time.

We needed to get the place cleaned out where the stove will be going. Since there are tools scattered all around the house Lee decided to put up shop in the back bedroom where he just installed the subpanel. It is his official tool work room for the moment. After he finished the job of organizing all his tools he told me that he was finding lost ones all over the house.

Except he still has an excuse. He now tells me that it will be the tool gremlins that come at night and mislay them. Un-huh.

Here is the clean area again that we will be working on. Edgar is staring in amazement. So am I for that matter. Lee wants to get the stove in this weekend. We will see though because I think he may be coming down with my cold.

We decided to put off installing the tiles under and behind the stove. That means that we don’t have to jack up the house before we install the stove. Woohoo. The reason being is after Lee talked to his brother it was suggested to wait. We have roofing, more walls and ceilings to tear out, and a million other banging around things to do. If we installed the tiles now we run the risk of cracking them during the other house work. So we are going to do a quick install that will keep us warm now and do the final finishing up later.

… and loving it! As some of you may remember, we cut all electric to our house just days before moving in as part of having a new outside service installed.  I got the well back online before we arrived, via a quick hack job (which fits the overall well setup quite nicely), but the water heater .. well, that required bringing power inside.  An electrician friend suggested that the interior subpanel would be best located just past the back door on the wall between the rear bedroom and the kitchen.

So, that’s our destination, but the journey starts outside at the newly installed meter main.  This exterior panel has slots for only 8 breakers (for exterior loads such as the well, and one day perhaps the barn, a shop, and a grid-tied photovoltaic system).  It also has lugs to connect a 200A carrying cable for an interior load center. In the picture on the right you can see the huge red, white, and black cables connected into these lugs.  These 4/0 gauge aluminum cables are obnoxious to work with, especially by flashlight in the cold.  They don’t bend well at all, so you are fighting them for every inch.  I also ended up sticking myself in the finger with a utility knife while stripping one.  That was fun.

The cables in the previous picture are bundled into a 4 strand SER cable (two hots, one neutral, and a 2/0 bare ground) with sheathing for most of its journey.  This cable goes through the wall and then down through the floor as shown.  The hole through the wall was caulked between the panel and the siding.  The cable is then protected by a plastic bushing I glued in place.  I plan to spray-foam all the holes after inspection.  An observant viewer will note that the cable sticks out into the room past the 2×4 wall framing.  This would normally be a problem, except that I plan to double-stud insulate all exterior walls in the house, so the cable will be well within the final wall assembly.

This whole install process actually started in the crawlspace.  I wrestled 52 feet of that wrist-thick SER cable into this dusty, cramped space under our floor.  With only about 9 inches of room under some beams, it wasn’t the most comfortable experience.  Actually, comfort isn’t even on the chart.  Rocks in your back, your head in the dirt, dead mice and spider webs everywhere … and a respirator to keep from sucking in all the fine dust that layers everything.  Ughh!  Unfortunately, I think I’ll probably get pretty familiar with our crawlspace.  Although I don’t plan to run any electric circuits or water lines through it, the drain lines will remain and I still need to shore up some sagged areas of the floor.

This is the only shot I have of the actual cable installed.  Good tools don’t mind a little dirt.  Digital cameras — not so forgiving.  The cable is that twisted object in the top center of the frame.  After I dragged all the cable into the crawl I pulled it over the beams along a floor joist and then pushed it up the first hole (after some chiseling to round out the opening).  I then took the other end down the floor joist into the area below the kitchen, turned a corner, and ran along the bottom of the floor joists and up into the other hole by the back door.  It’s strapped in place every 4 feet or less.  I wonder if the electrical inspector will crawl around here to see if I did this part right?

From the crawlspace the cable returns to the land of the living through a hole below the subpanel I installed a couple days ago.  It enters though a clamp at the bottom, the sheathing is then stripped, and each individual cable runs off to its respective lug.  As this is a subpanel, the ground is bounded to the panel box and the neutral is kept isolated.  The reasons for this never made sense to me until I read Rex Cauldwell’s explanation in the book Wiring A House.

Finally, here on the left is the installed panel, complete with one 30A circuit running to the water heater.  This is a temporary circuit, as I’m not keeping the water heater in it’s present location.  Technically, I should have got this subpanel inspected before I added a circuit.  If you’ve read some of my past posts, you know my opinion of the Lane County building department.  The electrical inspection process is especially designed to be inconvenient for homeowners.  You are supposed to have all circuits run and the grounds bounded and inspected before you apply power to any of them.  This really isn’t practical for a homeowner living in the space they are working on.

Anyway .. short story long, about 30 minutes after I threw the main breaker back on there was hot water coming out of the tap, and about 2 hours later Robin had drawn a big steaming tub full of water for her first official bath of the new house.  Given that our indoor air temperature on the first floor is probably in the 40s, it was a very steamy bath.