Brick surround

Surprised no one has answered, so I'll chip in my two cents and bump ya for additional answers.

The manufacturer should provide specs on clearances from the stove to various materials. You could construct your brick wall in direct contact with your wood wall - and this will have one set of clearances to the stove (24 inches could be typical, but again the mfr will set their own numbers) You could also construct your brick wall with a 1" ventilated air space between it and the wall, typically this will reduce the clearance somewhat (possibly to ~12"), but again the mfr sets this for the particular stove.

General specs: (your manufacturer and/or local building codes may differ)

http://extension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/agengin/g01730.htm

The floor should also have some sort of non-combustible layer - again according to the specs.

HTH

The manufacturers specs on clearance to combustible wall are just that.
If you add the brick in front of it, I believe you still have same spec'd distance between the stove & the combustible wall. Meaning you can add brick in front the wall and the combustible wall is still the spec'd distance away.
Adding a non combustible material in the space between the combustible surface & stove does not count as lost spec'd space to the combustible surface.
If your tearing down the wood wall, and installing the brick with no combustibles directly behind it, your fine. If this is a partition wall, would be more beneficial to leave wall out, do an alcove, or do a 1/2 wall to let the heat more freely move around the space. Just a thought.

NFPA 211 says that 3 1/2" of masonry applied directly to the combustible wall buys you a 33% reduction of the required clearance. 3 1/2" of masonry with a 1" ventilated airspace between it and the combustible wall buys you a 66% reduction. I don't know what the manufacturer's required rear clearance for your stove is, but let's just say it's an old unlisted stove which requires 36". With the unventilated masonry you could then go down to 24"...still measured from the combustible wall to the stove. With a ventilated masonry wall, you could go down to 12". (In this case, then, the rear surface of the stove would actually sit 7 1/2" from the surface of the brick. Make sense? I have such a rear shield in my shop stove installation. I'll attach a pic. Rick

Yes, you can add it, and yes you can call it that, so long as there is a minimum 1" gap between it and the combustible wall behind it. If mounted directly against the combustible wall it actually reduces your clearance as it is now considered a part of your combustible wall. This is because the heat transferred is considered straight thru it with no loss.

The only thing you would also want to do if you are going from floor to ceiling is to gap the bricks at the bottom and top, so that hot air which is generated from the heat of the bricks is allowed to escape from the top gaps thus drawing air in from the bottom gaps. Be sure to post pics of the project and good luck.

RandyB said:

...If mounted directly against the combustible wall it actually reduces your clearance as it is now considered a part of your combustible wall. This is because the heat transferred is considered straight thru it with no loss...

Click to expand...

Not true. 3 1/2" of common brick provides an r-value of about 0.7...not a great insulator, but not zero. NFPA 211 recognizes this by allowing a 33% reduction in clearance for such an installation, as I pointed out in my previous post. Any shield benefits tremendously from the ventilated airspace, but the absence of that airspace doesn't mean the material has no insulative value at all. There will be a temperature decrease across the thickness of the brick facade, and that's what insulation is. Rick

BeGreen said:

If you are tight on space, this can also be achieved with a simple metal wall (as noted, can be decorative), spaced one 1" from the wall(s), with ventilation opening on bottom and top. That bring the stove an extra couple inches closer if needed.

Click to expand...

Yes, that gives you your 66% reduction without the thickness of the brick. Of course, if the whole partiition wall is going to be ripped out (I'm assuming this is a non load-bearing wall :gulp: ), and a purely non-combustible masonry partition built in its place, then our whole discussion about rear clearance reduction is just an exercise in posting to the forum. %-P Rick

Rick,You have one hell of a shop there,nice set up.

budman said:

Rick,You have one hell of a shop there,nice set up.

Click to expand...

Thanks, budman. I'm hoping it's the last shop I ever have to build. Still need to do the countertops & sink & stuff, but I'm comfortable in it. OK, sorry...back on topic now. Rick

Thanks also to you all, I was just about to post the same question, now I have the answer.