Rose Cottage Ltd

I wrote a post back in January 2012 about some wood stove maintenance I’d need to do before the Fall/Winter stove season began. Even though there was one 82 degree day in Central North Carolina which made it seem silly to spend the day working on/with the wood stove, by the 38 degree morning yesterday, I was glad I had.

You’ll see from the January post that the stove’s gasket seal around the window needed replacing and that I also needed to replace some of the bricks that hold and process the heat. It took me about 2 hours to accomplish this work since I had already ordered the gasket roping, the “glue” to hold it in the stove’s window channel, and the bricks.

Based on yesterday’s and this morning’s burn, I apparently got the seal tight enough and I also think the new bricks are making for a better fire.

I also bought a little chimney sweep tool from Lowe’s. It looks like a Brillo pad on steroids and is attached (sold seperately,) to a snaky piece or two of narrow aluminum tubing that extends about 20′. I got up on the roof, ran this thing up and down the vent a few times, and then removed the outside vent cap and cleaned the creosote from that with some steel wool. I’m lucky to have a low roof so this was all accomplished quite safely in about 30 minutes.

My stove was purchased from Lowe’s in 2007. You can read some info about it – and the year-over-year savings since its arrival.

This particular model is hard to find now five years later, but I have linked some wood stoves that are similar here. Further down that same page is an interview with the stove’s installer with a few FAQs AND a few useful wood stove accessories.

I’ll be updating the savings enjoyed by using this wood stove for heat soon but I can tell you here that I made it through all of last year’s and the early 2012 heating season on one tank of LP gas. Prior to the wood stove, I was using at least one and one-half tanks to get through the cold months.

Today’s high is to be right about 49 degrees with very windy conditions and some rain. This is a perfect time to heat the house via the wood stove. I’ll set my central heating on 60 degrees, and probably not have it run for the rest of the day. All I’ll hear is the wood stove blower versus the quarters dropping every time the central heat WOULD be kicking in.

Music to my ears…

I mentioned in a prior post that at the middle of Year 5 of the life of my Century Hearth wood stove, it is time to do a bit of maintenance.

Part of the gasket seal – that webbed-look stuff that lines the front window – has shredded and split. Since I burn fairly “hot” fires, some of the stove’s fire bricks are also showing some wear. Fortunately, finding what I needed proved easier than I at first thought it might be.

There are quite a few YouTube videos that show the basics of making the actual repair – here’s a good one for you…

But I still needed the “stuff” to make this repair. Off to Woodman’s Parts Plus. They have everything I need now – and a few things I may need in future.

I was able to order the gasket, (in less than an expensive 90 foot roll!) in a reasonable 6-foot length. Width was easily measured at the stove – in the case of my Century Hearth FW240007 model, 3/4″ gasket. I ordered the cement to attach the new gasket, and was also able to order a 6-pack of firebricks – all from the same web site. If I’d thought a bit further ahead I would have added some stove black to my order – on the list for next time…

From the time I realized I needed repair materials to the time the shipment arrived at my door was less than 2 weeks – and one week of that was me researching a source for the repair materials and figuring out sizes and lengths of what I actually needed. I am very pleased to recommend Woodman’s Parts Plus (based in New Hampshire) for wood stove accessories and replacement materials.