Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Wood Burning Stove is Installed

Our wood burning stove was installed yesterday! The installer, Keith, and his son are great! They render the sides of the chimney where we have missing brick and chunks of concrete. I love the original brick so much we decide to keep it exposed in the back. Keith (and his son pictured above) also sweep all four chimneys. As soon as I see the chimney sweep broom I am reminded of a certain niece and nephew of mine who LOVE Mary Poppins. I have seen them rewind and play the "Chim-Chimney" song on the DVD for a good hour (their favourite bit). So this picture is for you two! I do have to mention that Keith and his son were reluctant to pose and told me how a friend of theirs who is a chimney sweep gets invited to all his clients' weddings. Apparently an old superstition says that if you have a chimney sweep kiss the bride on the day of the wedding it is good luck. So he gets all decked up in his chimney sweeping outfit, grabs his broom and goes to weddings (and gets paid for it). Not bad! Here is our wood burning stove installed. The make is Clearview and it is considered one of the better makes in that it is clean burning (for our smokeless fuel area) and is one solid piece of cast iron. It is quite small inside and will take maximum a piece of wood that is 12" long. Too bad I had not known that before one of my wood stores was cut to 16" long. We want to get a fire surround, like the one pictured above to go around the opening. It just looks a bit too modern at the moment. The one above is cast iron as fire regulation won't let us put a wood surround (which are much easier to come by) unless it is much higher above the stove. Our plaster arrived today and as soon as he stepped into the backyard he exclaimed, "what a mess!" Well, yes. But that haul of timber is from the loft and I intend to start sawing it up today for fuel. A mess with pretty dappled sunlight? My wood store is full so I will have to start stacking against the fence now.

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