Just got my new Countryside today and read with great interest the letters regarding safe installation of a wood cook stove. We had ours in a large kitchen in PA, now our kitchen is much smaller..BTW, it is a Sweetheart Oval..the manufacturer recommends 18 inches from a wall that has been made fire-resistant by the addition of brick, or some other heat-resistant barrier (with air space between the barrier and the original wall)..as well as an 18 inch space between the firebox and the floor with the floor protected equally by a heat-resistant barrier...our insurance company is wonderful..they say that only the manufacturers' requirements must be met (I LOVE ALABAMA)..there are no codes here at all in this part of the woods anyway. For those of you who use wood cook stoves, how do you have them set up???? I also got a tad confused reading about the connection between the stovepipe and the chimney needing to be horizontal..if I have to do that, the whole connection would end up in a closet behind the kitchen...HELP ! God bless.

-- Lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), February 09, 2001

Answers

Hi Lesley, Haven't got my new Countryside yet,(sure hope it comes today!!) but in Michigan the installation code requires the connection between the stovepipe and the chimney to be horizontal. I don't know why and didn't ask at the time. In order for us to continue with the insurance company we had to install according to code. I also didn't ask if that code was township, county or state.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), February 10, 2001.

Years ago when I lived in western NY, I lived in a log cabin, I bought a new Stanley cook stove and what I did was; I screwed 2 steel 2x4 studs to the wall and then attached a piece of "high rib" metal roofing to the studs, that is my heat sheild. I prefer a horizontal pipe, (through the wall) rather than having to go through the roof. with my homeade heat sheild and the built in one, I can get real close to the wall.

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), February 12, 2001.