Wood Stove

It had been less than 48 hours in the city for me, before my return to Nordegg.  I left the cottage on Monday November 8th and by the afternoon of November 10th, Helena and I were back out, with the new wood stove on the back of the truck.

On Remembrance Day, while Helena was playing with her friend Arlette, from next door, I tinkered around in the cottage.  I installed a backing of 3/4" plywood behind where the wood stove will be positioned.  I intend to mount a stainless steel reflector here on standoffs.

Margarit came out and joined us on the evening of November 11th.  On the 12th I set up my thickness planer and planed down all the boards that I had glued up for door jambs.  The finished stock is now about 1" thick, and of the proper width for the various interior doors.  I'm not really ready for the jambs, but I wanted to get this wood glued up, planed down and put away.  Prior to this it was stored outside, and I was a little concerned about it getting weathered.

On Friday morning the building inspector came out to have a look at the framing.  I had almost forgotten about this step and its a good thing I remembered to call for the inspection before I closed up any of the walls.  Everything was approved with no issue, much as I expected.

In the early afternoon my contractor Scott came over with his skid steer.  He lifted the wood stove off of my truck and hoisted it into the cottage for me.  We placed it on a dolly, so that it could be maneuvered into proper position.  Once I had the crate that it was packed in all taken apart, I called on my neighbor Dan to come over and give me a hand.  We were able to lift the 450Lb stove off of the pallet and into position on the stone floor that I had prepared.  Margarit gave us a hand and was able to pull out the pallet when we lifted the stove.  The stove is manufactured by Blaze King and this model is called an Ashford 20.  We have the larger version of this same stove in our main cottage, and are really happy with it.  It burns very efficiently and easily keeps the entire cottage warm, even on a very cold winter day.

It was a fairly pleasant day and I think the temperature topped out at around +9c.  For some reason Margarit was chilled all day, and I got the propane heater going in the cottage to keep her warm.  This is rather unusual as normally she is overheated while everyone else is cold.  In any event, we managed to get the stove into its final position and get it reasonably well leveled.  Then we installed the chimney and it all fit together as planned, with no issues.  I also put the fresh air intake into place, down into the crawlspace.  In the short term I will just make a point of cracking a window open whenever the stove is in use.  Eventually, once the siding is installed, I will put in a proper intake to the stove.  We christened the stove by lighting a fire in it, and it warmed the place up nicely, relatively quickly.