Englander NC30 - Alcove Install

Tonight I'll be doing the electrical work and wiring up the blower rheostat on a wall plate in the wall to the left of the stove.

 

...and all the while

 

Took an extra day but finally had the inaugural lighting of the stove last night. While installing the junction box for the rheostat a chunk of the wall fell apart (old plaster and lathe) so had to patch that up and repaint. Also had an alignment issue with the wall thimble, but all is taken care of now. Only had a very small fire in it last night, just to make sure everything was working and sealed properly. Everything seems good so far. There were even coals this morning even though it was a tiny fire. I didn't expect that. Anyway, here are a couple pics. More to follow.

Any advice/recommendations on equipment for testing wood moisture as well as thermometers?

 

Looks good there!

A cheap moisture meter will work...a lot of people buy the General at bLowes...$20-25 IIRC.
Just make sure you use it correctly...resplit the wood after it is room temp, then test in the middle of a fresh split face. Testing it on the ends means nothing.

 

well the meters help quite a bit in that department - depending on the quality of the unit of course- those that can be re-calibrated are a better choice. There are some new ones out sans pins using high frequency , magnetic resonance, or IR technologies. Never did trust the baseball bat approach. I will run a split through the band saw- I can feel moisture if it is to high just from the friction of the blade at the cut. The old 3 year plan and top cover pretty much gets it done 98% of the time.

 

Lowe's

 

I think I have secondary burn. Starting to smell the stove and pipe paint burning off as well. Starting to throw off good heat too! Very excited!

 

Great looking stove and hearth! Enjoy! Perfect timing to boot.

 

Your paint is very shiny, I don't remember mine ever being that shiny.