Raised hearth height

I'm getting ready to finally start working on my Ideal Steel install in the basement. I have decided to build up the height of the hearth so it's easier to load and see burning. The plan is to use cinder blocks. My thought is to use 8" tall hollow blocks for the bottom course and then cap with 4" solid blocks. That'll give me 12", plus the tile, of height. Is that too much, to short, just right...?

 

I'm not the only one who's done this, but I built mine about 12" high and wish I would have gone a little more.
Got tired of kneeling on the floor to start fires, as my knees are almost shot.
Much easier to see the fire now, and definitely easier to load.

 

first question is your legs at the highest level? or what is your stove leg to ash lip? then next question is how tall are you?

 

Legs are still set from the factory. I think I can raise the stove about 2-3" higher with just the legs. I'm short...5'8"

 

My Ideal Steel has the legs at full extension and sits on top of a 1.5" tall hearth pad on top of a 6" tall riser. It's still too low. I would consider 12" the MINIMUM support height under one of these stoves if you want to be able to sit down and see into it and load it without having to kneel or hurt your back. I think at 14-16" you could probably sit on a milk crate in front of it and load it without having to bend your back. Still might be a touch low for seeing into unless you have a pretty low chair or are sat most of the way across the room from it. Then again, if you get it wound up good, you're not going to want to be sitting too close to it anyway!

 

why I ask is the only downside I see with raising it higher is losing the cook surface (not a huge deal to some) but getting it too high to easily pull out the rad and cat to clean it.. just keep that in mind...

 

One word.......stepstool. Maybe that's two words.

 

true words usually spoken by the vertically challenged!

I got bad knees too so I wish my hearth was taller but at over 6 foot stepstool is not generally needed to reach a stove

 

I had my Fireview up on 12" blocks which worked great. It was pretty short. But the IS is so much bigger and I felt it didn't look right up that high, so I put it up on 4" cap blocks. It is hard to see in to the back of the stove.

^^^this^^^
The IS will run you out of the room on low!!!

 

I think my knees shrunk me. I used to be 6'.
No problem getting to the top of the stove, even with it sitting off the floor another foot.

 

Do the "floor" clearances stay in effect if'n the stove is raised???

My hearth is raised about 5-6" off my laminate floor; but I still have the 18" of non-combustible flooring and the proper R value require for my stove built into the raised hearth.

Question is this.................if'n your stove just requires ember protection for the floor; does it still need to be 18" in front stove??? So can your stove sit on a raised hearth only 6" from the edge, as long as it's non-combustible flooring below and the raised hearth is non-combustible also???

 

If I'm reading this right then yes. It would be 6" on the raised hearth & 12" on the floor of non combustible from the loading door.

 

Does Backwoods have a famous history with milk crates?

 

The thing about building a hearth high enough.

The higher you build it, the easier the stove will be to load and clean out. About table height would be ideal.

For more efficient heat dispersal, floor level would be ideal.

For aesthetic purposes probably no higher than 12", which seems kinda high...until you load it or clean out the ashes.

See whats happening here? Put it at what you like and be sure to post some pics for the rest of us!!!

 

I think I'll stick to the original plan of 12". It just seems about right to me to balance looks and convenience. I'm still young, 39, so I'm not worried about bending over too much. I don't think we'll cook on it too often but I don't want to restrict that by going too high. Menards had class A chimney on sale yesterday so I'll hopefully be getting this project started pretty soon.

 

If you draft is marginal and you can't easily extend the chimney outside you want to consider that. To go much higher outside, I would have had to drill into the roof for bracing so I chose to leave the stove sit a bit lower than I would have otherwise.

 

I will have 15' outside and at least 2' inside that goes to a 90. I think it'll be close to the minimum but should work.