Summer's Heat 50-SVL17 (Englander 17-VL) Install

So we've been burning our new stove for a week and I thought I would share some pics of the install.

And a video:


**edit**
Not sure how the forum figures what image to put first because I named them and uploaded them in order but they're showing out of order. Kinda obvious which ones go where though.

Danno77 said:

Awesome Just awesome

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Thanks. I hadn't done masonry work before so that was interesting. I had fun though. We used 3/4" plywood, leveled that out and screwed it down. Then 2 x 1/2" hardbacker screwed down, then the 1.75" cement pavers. 0.55R total, 0.5R was required. The wood surround is 1.25" pine that I cut to size and notched the ends of each to put them together. The two pieces are held together at the joint with a 1/3" wooden peg then they are nailed into the plywood as well.

The gates are actually "fireplace gates" that I bought and cut one "wing" off from each. Then I used the empty hinge hole on the end pieces to mount to the walls using L hooks screwed into the wall. The two assemblies attach to each other using a Linch Pin.

Danno77 said:

I'd get some flat black paint and paint the pine that is up on the walls, but leave the pine below natural, probably seal it with something, though.

Edit: actually, maybe you could paint the lower trim to match that in the room? I dunno.

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We have 3 coats of linseed on the lower trim and 2 coats on the upper pieces. When we paint the room the upper pieces will get painted the same color as the trim work in the room, the lower pieces will probably stay all natural.

jeeper said:

Looks great! I really like the pattern you used for the hearth bricks. Hope you are plenty warm this season!

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Thanks, I came up with 10 different patterns (drawn on graph paper) and then my wife and I "voted" on them and got down to 3 patterns. I laid out each pattern and with the actual pavers in place, this was the one that looked the best and would be the most sturdy.

littlalex said:

Joe - Great install. I'm jealous. Was going to buy the 17 in August but hesitated because of some confusion and concerns regarding my ins. co. so struggling this year to feed an old VC Vigilant. The hard part is keeping the heat down so we can stay in the same room with the beast.

Next year for sure (Thanks Corie wherever you be).

Tell us about the heat and details (how much space your heating, layout and other good stuff)

Bask in the warmth.

Littlalex

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The heat has been great. The room the stove is in is 12' x 14' and is our living room. With the stove running it is really easy to keep the living room at 72-74F and the rest of the house (1,250sq ft) at 68F on the far end and 70-72F most everywhere else. I'm loving it so far. It's really easy to run and my wife even loves using it, which is great since she was quite skeptical of getting a wood stove in the first place.

Another update. We've been burning almost 24/7 now (I load the stove when the kiddo wakes up at night). It heats pretty much the whole house and is a beautiful little stove. The only issue I have with it is that I can't get better than a 3 hour burn out of it. And when I say burn time I mean from when it's successfully lit to when there are just enough coals to relight. I'm only burning softwoods with a few pieces of mixed hardwood. The two times I've had mostly maple and oak I did get a 4 hour burn which is better, but still quite short. I'd love to upgrade to a bigger stove, but really don't want to give up more of the living room space. So until we add on to the house or something, this will be our stove. Overall I really can't complain - heck, the wife even likes to operate it!

Another update. We've gone through a little over 2 cords so far.

It will heat the whole house pretty well when cruising at 500 till it gets down to 10F outside, 20F if it's really windy. Not bad for a little guy. One issue I did find though is I need to be careful if it's super cold out. The downstairs bathroom doesn't get any of the heat from the stove due to the layout of the house (I'll be adding a vent to fix that since there is only one wall between the living room and the laundry room which the bathroom is next to). It was -15F outside, 76F in the living room with the stove ripping at 600F and the oil hadn't run much all day because I was keeping the very well fed...well, the bathroom got down to 48F room temp, but 34F right next to the pipes near the outside wall! Needless to say I kicked up the oil boiler to run the baseboard a few minutes and bring that up a bit.

Doesn't help that the thermostat is in the living room either.

1,250 sq ft for the house and I'm not using the blower. The Englander blower is noisy and didn't seem to help much. I use a cheap tower fan instead, point it so it blows behind the stove and into the corner and it flushes a WHOLE lot of hot air. It will heat the room up 2-3x faster than without the fan.