Page 274 - The Lost Ways

Most people put them along a wall (in that case, it needs to be mounted at least a foot
away from the wall), but they are more effective in the middle of the room. The closer to
the center it is, the more evenly it can heat the room.

To protect your home, the stove
needs to sit on a flameproof surface.
This can be cement, ceramic tile, rock,
or gravel. For a permanent
installation, you might be willing to
tear up your carpet or hardwood
floors for this, but for a temporary
installation, you probably won’t want

to do that. Instead, lay two layers of
ceramic tile on top of your carpeting,
staggering the joints so that no hot
sparks can get through them to find
the carpet.

The tile needs to extend at least one
foot around the stove on all sides and

two feet in the front. Your chances of
a spark are much greater in front than
they are on the sides, hence the larger
area. It wouldn’t hurt to go past this
point if you have space and materials
available.

The stove shouldn’t need to be anchored to the tile, but it should be able to sit there

stable on its own. Check to ensure that it doesn’t rock or slide on the tile. If it does, shim
it as necessary to keep it in place.

Temporarily Installing the Chimney

Installing the chimney is usually the difficult part of installing any wood-burning stove but
not so for our temporary installation. For this, we’re going to take a page out of history
and run the chimney the way they did in those later additions I mentioned.

The idea is to run the chimney out a window so that you don’t have to cut holes in the
walls, ceiling, or roof. This would probably drive any building inspector crazy, but we’re

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