Fire bricks: How to arrange bricks in wood stove?

CO poisoning is a different type of smoke all together!

 

If you have nothing but an open hole in the top of that stove, the only thing those fireworks are going to do is force more heat up the chimney, and not radiate any heat into your house.
If that stove was meant to have fire bricks in the side walls there would be Provisions for holding them in place

 

I think those comments are spot on. Without something to hold the bricks a couple of bumps when loading along with some ash caught behind might cause one to fall.

 

HDRock, Paul Bunyon, Well, yes, all I have is the 'hole' at the top of the stove. It is somewhat offset to the rear, but I can see no physical indication about this stove to suggest the use of firebricks, one way or another. So I figure I will start out with the bricks and subtract as necessary. I have a laser thermometer on its way to me. And I have some time until the real cold arrives. I will just have to fire her up and take readings. The flue goes through the bedroom above, so I do need some heat to go up. As to how much, and or how fast, that is something I will just have to adjust from fire to fire. I have the fire bricks that can be added and subtracted. I have the thermal battery below and behind the stove which can also be increased and decreased. And I have flue-mount deflectors sitting on the sidelines in case of need. So, with time, I am hopeful to get things down pat. As I mentioned, this house is not a large one and it is excellently insulated (6" of recently installed fiberglass). I have done about the best that one guy can do by himself and on less than a shoe-string budget. Within a week or so the weather up here will become cold enough in the later evenings that I will need to fire her up. So we will soon know...

 

Do you have single wall or double wall pipe coming from your stove to the chimney

 

A few years back I helped a friend replace a few pieces of cracked soapstone on his stove. The pieces had thin kerf running down the middle of the top and bottom of the stones and a thin piece of sheet metal as a spline that kept the stones aligned. I believe we also put stove cement between the stones. Just a thought if you stack them.

 

Coming out of the stove is single-wall, enters the ceiling with a thimble, and continues single-wall up through the bedroom, to the bedroom ceiling thimble, and then into a stainless double-wall adapter and chimney.

 

Fishingpol, I have a container of 3000 deg. stove cement but I am hoping that I will not need it. The bricks at the moment are stacked, but I have a feeling that some will be taken out. I sort of prefer that they float for now. I do not anticipate a problem with them falling or toppling. They seem to be sitting pretty solid.

 

Hopefully that single wall has proper clearance to combustibles the whole way...18" I think is code

 

Hacksaw with a carbide blade, circular saw or angle grinder with masonry or Diamond blade, dust mask required
Never done it myself, but I'm going to be doing it, in the next couple weeks, I'm going with a diamond blade for the angle grinder

 

Brenndatomu, I have been working on this project with a copy of the code on hand. The mandates are quite common sensical and not difficult at all to effect.

 

Wildwest, I have a variety of means to cut bricks but for now I will not be cutting any. My bricks seem to be fitting nicely and appear stable enough for now. My stove is somewhat curvy so there is some space behind the bricks which I will leave as is. I hope to avoid any need for cutting bricks. It has been many years since I cut any bricks. My recollection has it that it can be tedious though not difficult. Of course, an experienced mason is going to handle the task easily.

 

Guys, so I have been firing up the stove for the last few days. As you may recall from my prior posts, I started out with the stove fully stocked with bricks. That is, I covered the floor and stacked them up on all sides -except for the side of the load door. But I did not feel that I was getting enough heat into the room with that set-up. The second night, I took out all of the bricks except for the ones on the floor. The situation was thus much improved. Not only did the room heat up better, but the brick wall behind the stove went from 75 deg.f. the day before, to 100 deg.f. So I am satisfied. My thought now comes to removing the bricks from the floor of the stove. I know that the bricks are supposed to protect the steel of the floor of the stove and that is why I hesitate to remove them. But I would really like to get a little more heat out of the stove, plus I want to get some heat into the bricks that the stove sits on. I would appreciate any comments about this.

 

I figured that would happen.
I would leave the bricks in the bottom a lot of older stoves had bricks in the bottom and nowhere else, but hey you can always take them out and try it like that, but there's no doubt it will have a detrimental effect on the metal over time.
I don't remember you did put a damper in the stove pipe right? Because that type of stove needs one

 

I just noticed this post supposed to be fire bricks not fireworks

 

HDRock, yes, you were right about the bricks. I understand that the stove floor needs some protection. I was thinking that I would remove the bricks and use a grate. But I do not want to ruin the stove. I need it to last at least ten years. The average temp of the cast iron is 550 deg.f. and the flue pipe is 250. /// I have the damper but I have not installed it yet. I do not run the stove overnight. I fire it up once in the morning and once in the evening.

 

Yeah you should have a damper on that stove, it will keep more of the heat in the stove, have you checked the temperature of your stove pipe with your IR thermometer while it's burning, I'm assuming you have single wall stove pipe. If you do it would be good to have a magnetic Mount thermometer on there.

 

Yeah I'd try to leave the bottom brick if you can...it will help longevity for sure

 

My old stove had fire bricks in the bottom I tried a grate in there, cuz I didn't know any better at the time but anyway, when the ashes were all cleaned out wood was on the gratet it burned up too fast, once the ashes got piled up there was no air from the bottom the wood burned slower, but when it came time to clean the ashes out with that in there it was a big hassle