Tag: Wood Stove

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New Hearth Pad Arrives.

Day #185 & 186

November 18, 2020 – On Wednesday we received a call from AES Hearth & Patio. They received our new hearth pad and it was ready for pick up. Okay, hopefully it won’t have any damage this time.

I drove over to their Camp Hill store on the Carlisle Pike. It was in fact, a new hearth pad with no damage so I was good to go.

November 21, 2020 – On Saturday morning we left the house bright and early at 6:00 AM, bound for the Cot-Taj-Mahal with the new hearth pad. If you can remember the wood stove is sitting outside on the porch. I unloaded it from my truck using a pallet jack that I rented from Penn Equipment in Burnham, PA. After we place the new hearth pad on the floor we can move the wood stove inside and put it on the pad. To do that we need to rent the pallet jack again so out first stop was Penn Equipment.

With the pallet jack in the back of the truck we drove the rest of the way to the Cot-Taj-Mahal.

Installation

At the cottage, we unboxed the hearth pad and placed it on the floor. I used the pallet jack to bring in the wood stove.

New Hearth Pad
New hearth pad in place.
Pallet Jack
Pallet jack and plywood ramp at the sliding door.

After removing the fire brick from the inside of the stove, I installed the ash pan and the Queen Ann’s legs. At this point I pondered about how we were going to stand it upright without breaking the cast iron legs. At 350 lbs, the stove is just a wee bit heavy for Robrandi and I to be lifting.

Stove Assembly
Install the ash pan and cast iron legs.

After some engineering reflection I built a wood frame that we used to roll the stove upright. The frame was slightly taller that the Queen Ann’s legs. This kept the weight of the stove off the cast iron legs as we righted it. All good…. For some reason I don’t have any pictures of this contraption. I think we were to stressed at this point.

Hearth Pad & Stove
New hearth pad and wood stove.

Hearth Pad & Wood Stove

Moving ever so slowly we positioned the stove on top of the hearth pad. There you have it. The whole thing is centered on the accent wall and it looks great! All we need to do now is install the stove pipe and it will be ready to fire up.

After setting the wood stove it was too late in the day to return the pallet jack. Penn Equipment is closed on Sunday so this means that I’ll be making a return trip on Monday, at least to Burnham, to make the return. Rather than stay the night, we decided to just head back and spend Sunday at home.

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Ceiling Insulation in the Living Room.

Day #179

November 1, 2020 – Just a short post and then a rant for today. As far as the renovation work is concerned I finished up the insulation in the living room ceiling. This gets us closer to installing the actual suspended, lay in ceiling system. Here’s a couple of photos.

Ceiling Insulation
Ceiling insulation in the living room.

Ceiling Insulation

and now the rant…..

Back at the end of September, when I initially picked up the wood stove and hearth pad, I noticed a small hole in the cardboard covering. It was so small that I didn’t think anything of it. Shame on me, but prior to today, I never checked it. Well….

Towards the end of the day we went to set the hearth pad on the floor. Robrandi cleaned off the mortar from the tile work and removed the blue painters tape from the floor. I brought in the pad and we removed the card board wrapping. Of course the first thing we see is a broken tile and missing mortar. My whole day just turned upside down. It seems impossible to get materials down here that do not have some sort of damage!

After some discussion we decided that it has to go back. The broken tile is right in the front of the pad and it will be extremely visible.

Because I have a smaller truck bed, I had to build a wooden carrier so it would lay flat to avoid any further damage as we drove the dam thing back to AES Hearth & Patio. Of course, as soon as we went to put it in the truck it started pouring buckets. We got soaking wet! After I tied it down and stomped around for a bit we packed up and left for home. A crappy ending to an otherwise good weekend. Uggghhh!

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Floor Reinforcement for the Wood Stove.

Day #178

October 31, 2020 – Our new wood stove weighs in at about 350 lbs. The floor joists underneath the stove are full 2″ × 8″ solid oak. They are rather bouncy and I’m a little concerned about the point load that the wood stove will add to the floor. To help spread this load I decided to add additional floor reinforcement by adding solid bridging between 4 of the floor joists (3 joist spaces). This means I’ll be spending my weekend underneath the Cot-Taj-Mahal on my back. Yea!

Floor Reinforcement - Joist Spaces

Before I could start on the floor reinforcement I had to clear out some old wiring left over from who knows what. The plan is to install solid bridging in three of the joist space from the outside wall across to the center of the floor. In the pictures, the first concrete piers that you see are at the center of the cottage, width wise.

Floor Reinforcement - Solid Bridging

I used treated 2 × 8 pieces with galvanized joist hangers on both ends. The nailing was difficult due to the cramped quarters underneath the cottage.

Floor Reinforcement - Complete

All in all the floor reinforcement went much better than I expected. I managed to finish it up in one day. I hope that this will provide some additional strength underneath the wood stove. We don’t want it falling thru the floor.

Tomorrow I’ll move back inside to continue the ceiling insulation in the living room.

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Unload the New Wood Stove

Day #170

October 1, 2020 – I’ve been driving around for several days with the new wood stove in the back of my truck. As I wrote earlier, it is a Quadra Fire 4300. I have to unload it so I can haul other materials.

My goal is to roll it off onto the porch. This will keep it out of the weather until we are ready to move it inside.

I was able to rent a pallet jack from Penn Equipment Company. They are located a little north of Lewistown, in Burnham, PA. I picked it up around 8:00 AM, drove back to the cottage, unloaded the wood stove and returned it by 11:00 AM.

Wood Stove 03

Above, I backed up the truck to the porch and constructed a small wooden ramp for the unload.

Wood Stove 04 - Unload

Using the pallet jack, I walked the wood stove right of the back of the truck onto the porch.

Wood Stove 05 - Unload

Unload complete!

Wood Stove 06

Aside from being a little wet, everything else was good. None of the fire brick (lining) were broken and nothing was missing. Once the accent wall tile is complete we will move the stove inside.

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Quadra Fire Wood Stove and Hearth Pad

Day #167

September 29, 2020 – Our salesperson from AES Hearth & Patio called yesterday to let us know that our new Quadra Fire wood stove and hearth pad had arrived. Today I went over to AES to pick them up.

We placed the order for a Quadra Fire model 4300 Step-Top steel wood stove with Queen Ann legs back on September 15, 2021. The hearth pad is an American Panel Volcanic SandsT2 with a Colonial edge. It’s all pretty awesome and will look great in the newly renovated Cot-Taj-Mahal.

Quadra Fire Wood Stove 01

When I got to AES they loaded the Quadra Fire stove and hearth pad into my truck with a forklift. There was a very small hole in the cardboard covering the hearth pad. It was so small that I didn’t think anything of it. (More on that later.)

Wood Stove 02
Quadra Fire Wood Stove and American Panel Hearth Pad all loaded up.

Now, I have to deliver, offload and move the stove into the cottage living room. It weighs 350 pounds so that will be no small task.

For anyone that’s interested, the old Warm Morning stove was removed way back in June of 2018.