It's been a looooong cold winter because, until last night, our wood stove hasn't been working. With vaulted ceilings throughout the house and the heater vents in the ceiling, it seemed that the house was always cold despite the furnace always running. My kids were running space heaters in their bedrooms more often than I liked and we all wore layers and layers of clothes. And we ran through 100 gallons of propane in the last month or so. I debated long and hard about buying a new wood stove and decided to fix up my old Lopi. It's a good, solid stove and really only needed minor parts replacement. The firebox is still good so I decided that it would be a lot cheaper to replace a few parts for several hundred dollars than to buy a new stove for a few thousand dollars.
It took a few weeks to get the parts: three air flow bars and the door seal, glue, etc. My younger son replaced the seal around the door and my older son put in the air flow bars, kind of like catalytic converters, I think. Not all stoves have them.
Anyway, when my son was putting in the new air flow bars, he realized that the brackets holding up the bricks needed to be replaced too. The parts that needed to be replaced had worn thin and melted in places. A wood stove's worst enemy is green wood and too hot of fires. (Guilty, as charged. Of course, that stove has been used a lot too. We burn fires from November to April, nearly 24/7 most days. I usually go through at least 3 cords of wood a winter.) We ordered the parts and, after a couple of weeks waiting for them to be delivered, finally picked them up. When my son went to install them, he realized the guy had ordered the wrong stove parts and they wouldn't fit. So, we had to reorder them and again wait another couple of weeks for delivery.
FINALLY, we got the right parts and then my son found that the support pins were missing. After unsuccessfully looking online, my son found some at Home Depot that he thought would work. YES, they fit!! Success!!!
My son kept the fire going all day today and when I came home from work tonight, I can actually say that for the first time this winter, it feels nice and warm in the house. ;)
Mucho Thanks, boys!!
Earthlings on Fire - song: Law (Earthlings on Fire), artist: David Bowie, album: Earthling
