JULY 13 UPDATE: Chimney details

The last few days of work on the house have involved a lot of thought work, and some shopping -- not too much to take pictures of, or to blog about.


Today, Dave put some of that thought to work, climbing the ladder to start getting the chimney in place. This needs to be done before we can schedule someone to come do the spray foam insulation, which will go into the underside of the roof.

It is a long way up to the peak, and I must admit the rest of the household was a little bit nervous that Dave was working on this by himself. But Dave pointed out that there's not a whole lot another person could do on this job anyway -- he or she would just stand around and watch, since there's only room for one person up on the ladder. And Dave assured me he'd read the installation manual, several times, and talked over the plan with the stove store owner, so the rest of us tried not to worry.


The black box is the lowest part of the chimney -- from there down to the stove will be stove pipe, not chimney pipe. The biggest difference between the two (besides cost -- chimney pipe is much more expensive) is that the chimney is better insulated -- the intent is for as little heat to get out the chimney walls as possible. The stovepipe, on the other hand, is double-walled, and so shouldn't let too much heat escape either, but it's not insulated as well, so some heat will be given off by the stovepipe.

That's my understanding, anyway. I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong!

Sofia and I helped Dave put some chalk marks on the floor this afternoon outlining where the stove and the pad under it are going to be. It's a bit of a problem, because the installation manual for the stove calls for having a certain R value of nonflammable material below and for a certain distance around the stove, and getting that R value means a 4-foot by 4-foot area of floor beneath the stove will be a half-inch higher than the rest of the floor. I was worried that might be a trip hazard, so we drew it out on the floor (you might need to click on a the photo to see a larger version to make out the chalk lines).


You can tell there's not a whole lot of room between the blue line that marks the edge of the raised area and the post -- and that's the most logical walkway between the east door and the living area.

What I think we will do is trim off the corner there, about half a tile, cut diagonally -- it will mean the area of greater R value won't be quite as big as the installation instructions call for, but hopefully no one will trip on that corner, either.

Here's a view of stove placement from above (once again, you may need to click on the photo to see the chalk lines). I think it really will look nice, when it's all done, to have the stove as the focal point of the room there -- it's just tricky getting everything into place!

Dave had some John Prine playing, and Sofia got into some dancing when she was done "helping" with the chalk marks.

... The berry bushes just to the west of the new house are bearing. Sofia and her cousins did a surprisingly good job of picking gooseberries and red and white currants on Friday (with some help from their mothers). I was enamored with how pretty those berries are -- in the right light, the white currants look just like little pearls.

We picked enough for three smallish containers for the freezer. I told Sofia we'll get them out this winter, when there's nothing at all green around, and think of summer as we eat them.