Mantle Shield

Find a good custom sheet metal shop to fab one up for you. My last one was something like $22.00. It was two easy bends and the edges were peened over to take the sharp edge off. If painting, clean any oil residue off it before priming and painting.

Jotul charged me $75 and I thought that was expensive.

Woodstock sells the Meeco mantel shield for ~ $40. It's nothing fancy, but it's already painted black, and it comes with ceramic spacers. They'll probably give you 10% off, since you just bought a stove from them. . .at least that's the sale they were running on accessories when I bought, and they extended it to stuff I bought after buying the stove, 'cause they're cool like that. You might want to look at a rear heat shield too for ~ $60. . .and maybe an extra thermometer.

I'll second that extra thermometer.....if it can be used. With the stove going in the fireplace there might not be a place to stick it on the flue.

Apologies if I missed this in another thread, but is this a ginormous walk-in fireplace? The top and side doors require a good amount of clearance for servicing the cat and for sliding logs into the stove. I would not put the FV into the fp, not one inch. Even if you have enough room for loading logs, a lot of heat comes off of the back of this stove, hence the larger than average rear clearance req of 30". Putting it inside the fp is going to make it so that this heat wants to go up the masonry chimney instead of into the room. Yes, a block-off plate in the damper area will help with this, but why fight it? Yes, my thinking with the rear heat shield was that I wanted as much heat as possible reflected forward rather than back into my exterior masonry, which loses heat to the weather. The heat shield also makes a nice lil' convection tunnel to flow hot air off of the stove. While I'm ranting about it, the flue gives off a good bit of heat too, so I would want the flue out in the room too, and this is where...

. . .the flue is where thermometer #2 would go. It will help you determine when to engage the cat, but you would need to be able to see this thermometer. Being able to see the air control calibrations(0,1,2,3,4) is helpful too. Personally, I placed my stove as far forward as allowed by the hearth, a few inches out of the fp, and I feel like I get a lot of heat trapped between the rear of the stove and the mantel. I'd like to have the stove another 6" forward.

Oh yeah, the mantel shield. . .I dunno if it is on their web site. Just call them. No hurry though. Take your time and figure out all the accessories you want from them and just ship 1 order. The Pilgrim ash bucket they sell is nice too. . .fits the FV door like it was made for it. You might find it a lil' cheaper on ebay or Amazon, but not if Woodstock gives you 10% off and combines shipping with other stuff.

My mantle shield is a piece of sheet metal resting on three rods inserted into angled holes drilled into the mortar (between bricks, about a half foot above the fireplace opening). It is easily removed when I'm not burning.

Agree with Den, stove is best not too far back in the FP. Mine is about a third in, and I lose a lot of heat to the masonry, even with reflective metal in the back of the FP.