Wood burning stove installation in low ceiling basement.

Hi guys, I'm looking for ideas of how to install a Lopi Answer wood burning stove in my basement. The chimney is already in place and all the installation requirements were met but one: Ceiling clearance. On the alcove installation manual which I'm using, the minimum height for combustible alcove is 84". My beams are already 82" high and this entire room has drop ceiling that I'd like to keep it, but I'm already planing to remove the part around the stove. So this brings me to create a non-combustible ceiling around the stove to work as a heat shield, that as per installation requirements, needs to be 1" from the combustibles (beams and insulation), 3 1/2" thick and made of brick, stone or concrete. Does anyone here has any ideas, pics, materials that I should use or anything that could help me on this project? I'm stuck!

begreen said:

A ventilated heat shield is what you want here. It can be made with any non-combustible material, on 1" non-combustible spacers attached to the floor joists. A 3' x 5' sheet of cement board works well for this or a sheet of sheetmetal. They sell ceramic spacers or you could cut some 1" spacers up from a length of 1/2" copper pipe.

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Cool! Do you have any ideas for the material I could use on the cement board to fill up the other 2 1/2" I need?

begreen said:

It does not need to be 3.5" thick. There are several methods for heat shielding. The ventilated shield can be made from any non-combustible material, even 24 ga sheet metal. Note lines f) & g) in this chart:
https://www.hearth.com/talk/wiki/nfpa-wall-clearance-reductions/

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I printed that page, great information. Do you know from what book or manual that was taken from?

Nick Mystic said:

You might be misunderstanding the heat shield requirements for a ceiling. I've never heard of requiring three and a half inches of brick or concrete for a ceiling heat shield! Most of the ceiling heat shields I've heard about consist of just a piece of sheet metal with the one inch air space behind it. Since you are just two inches shy of the required 84" height I would be confident a metal heat shield would provide adequate safety.

Welcome to the forum and good luck.

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Nick,
Thanks for the reply and the big welcoming!
I just hope I didn't understand this right, my life would be so much easier! I'm uploading the page that I got it from, so you guys can help me think. But this is what it says there:

"Alcoves are classified as combustible and non-combustible. Non-combustible alcoves must have walls and ceiling that are 3 1/2 thick of a non-combustible material (brick, stone or concrete)..."

Again, thanks for your help and let me know what you think.

begreen said:

What 2 1/2"? Do you have a picture?

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My bad, I misunderstood you. I thought I should still cover the cement board with something like stone or something else to get to the 3 1/2" thick that is on the manual.