Thanks to all of you who gave advice, guidance and opinions The knowledge I gained here helped me select and install my new wood burning insert. I finally turned that hole in the basement wall into a productive member of the family
I’m tend to be pretty long winded, so look at the pictures as your reward for putting up with my rambling.
I will post pictures and descriptions as I go, since I’m not sure how to post multiple pictures and hate it when you have to scroll left to right because the pictures line up so long.
The first couple of pictures are the before shots. I would eventually like to do something with the brick. I really like the stone look that I have seen done by a couple of you and am considering that once the funds recover. I also inherited the mauve paint job in the basement. All I can say about that is it’s not long for this world.
Here’s a closer shot of the original, beautiful brass / glass doors with the screen that I would constantly burn myself on when I was busy sucking heat out of the rest of the house!
If anyone is interested in the old doors, just PM me….Hold on…Oh, I hear the garbage truck…Never mind the PM….
Here’s one with the old stuff stripped out and the firebox cleaned. While I was at this stage, I cleaned the chimney. I was surprised that it really wasn’t in that bad shape, but I was able to get it a bit better.
Here’s a shot of the original damper. That was actually a piece of cake to get out. I pulled the cotter pin that held the door to the arm, took off the nut that held the two halfs of the arm together, slid out the adjusting rod and done! Of course each step sent another load of goodies down on my face!
Once the damper was out, I could reach up onto the smoke shelf in the back much better to clean. I was amazed at all the junk that had collected there over time.
This is one side of the blockoff plate. In this picture, I still haven’t sealed around the plate (this was a test fit of this piece). Above the metal lintle that goes across the top of the firebox opening, there was another piece of angle iron with the top leg horizontal to the base of the fire box. There was enough room to slip on end of the plate back about 1/2” onto the angle iron and rest the other piece on the angle that goes back to the damper. This allowed me to basically use a flat piece of metal 8” wide. All I had to do was trim for the angled ends and cut out a hole for the liner. That made this job much easier than I thought.
Ok, when I saved this shot to the computer, I called it ‘Crazy Randy’. That’s my BIL Randy up on the chimney guiding the 6” ss liner down. As I said, it was a prety straight shot down and we really didn’t run into too many snags along the way. We did end up pulling the liner back out after the first try to ovalize a bit more of the bottom. After ovalizing about the bottom 3’, the liner passed through the damper easily. While ‘Crazy Randy’ was working the top, I was inside the firebox with a rope that was attached to the end of the liner, helping to guide and pull the liner past some of the chunks of mortar in the clay liner.
Once the liner was in, I was able to trim and round the end back out and attach the connector that attaches to the insert. I sealed this connection with furnace cement. At this time, I was also able to cut the final hole in the blockoff plate and get that in place.
Ok, time for this bad boy to make an appearance. Here’s the Osburn 2200i in it’s crate in the back of my pick-up. I was able to strip the insert down to make it a bit easier to carry in. I removed the top heat shield, door, firebrick and blower. I don’t know what the final weight was, but Crazy Randy and I were able to carry it from the back of the truck, in the house, down seven steps and across the basement (25’ or so) to the fireplace. Once there, we were able to set in on the hearth and ultimately slide it straight back into position.
Here’s a shot of the stripped insert in the firebox with the liner connected. Once the insert was basically in place, I was able to shift it side to side using a section of 2x4 as a lever between the firebox wall and the bottom edge of the insert. That made side to side shifts much easier.
Closer shot of the connection to the insert. The connector originally came with a band clamp that ran through three straps. The clamp was supposed to go around the top of the collar on the insert and hold the liner in place. I was having a very hard time getting the clamp to line up all the way around. It seemed as though every time I would get the front of the clamp around the brackets on the insert, the back side would slide off the collar and vise versa.
I ended up taking the clamp off, bending the straps up out of the way and slipping the connector inside the collar. I used three sheet metal screws through the tabs on the insert to secure the connector to the collar. I then sealed this joint with furnace cement. I can tell you from trying to adjust the insert a bit after the cement set, that joint isn’t going anywhere.
Finally done, face plate, trim and all installed. Everything but the spring handle on the door latch; can’t get that darn thing to slip over the end of the handle.
Here she is ready for launch! First break in fire is ready to light. That’s 1/4 of a Super Cedar; Thanks NW Fuels! The samples you sent came today, perfect timing!
The wood is actually part of the crate that the insert was packed in!
All in all, the whole project went very well. Thanks to all the research I did and all of the knowledge that is available on this site, I pretty much knew what was coming at each step. I am sure glad that I found this forum and this great bunch of people.
Everyone raise your glass, can or bottle; Cheers…you deserve it!
The knowledge I gained here helped me select and install my new wood burning insert. I finally turned that hole in the basement wall into a productive member of the family 
The first split! FIRE!!!