Alderlea T5 installation question

[phoenixheater]

Hi everyone,

Well, thanks to all of your advice and hours of forum reading, we settled on the Alderlea T5. We picked it up over the weekend (in the back of my husband’s station wagon!) and installation is currently in progress. (Fortunately, the installers didn’t bat an eye about picking it up out of the car and carrying it up the porch. Being strong must be nice!!) It is a beautiful stove, and I am really pleased with the choice.

Here’s the question: As he positioned the stove, the installer pointed out the electrical outlet directly behind it. Is this a problem for the installation? If we meet the clearance for the wall, is having an outlet on that wall any kind of additional problem, safety or otherwise? (Of course we won’t plug anything into it.) I’ve searched, but can’t find anything on this.

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

I’ll post an update when we get it fired up. So excited! It’s been 50 degrees in the house, because we’ve been unwilling to turn on the heat, so I’m really looking forward to being warm, too!

 

[KeithO]

I have an electrical outlet behind mine. The back of the stove does not get hot at all, so don't worry about it. The hot part of the stove is the front and the top and of course the stovepipe.

 

[begreen]

It shouldn't be an issue. The rear heat shielding is quite good. We have an electrical outlet behind our T6 and the wall barely gets warm down there.

 

[Elfin]

I have an outlet behind my T5 as well... it made me nervous too, but it's simply considered a combustible just like drywall so the clearances are no different. If you look closely at my avatar you can see the outlet just behind the back corner of the stove on the right of the pic.

And it's true... at that level the wall behind the stove doesn't get hot. The only place I ever feel the wall getting warm is above the top surface of the stove.

Good luck with your new T5!

 

[Elfin]

Oops... the outlet doesn't show in that pic! So here is another one... where you can actually see it

 

[BJ64]

Elf, did you do the tile work behind your stove? It is different but it looks pertty cool.

 

[Elfin]

Thanks, yes, I did... with intention that it be totally radically different from anything else I'd seen

 

[phoenixheater]

I have an outlet behind my T5 as well... it made me nervous too, but it's simply considered a combustible just like drywall so the clearances are no different. If you look closely at my avatar you can see the outlet just behind the back corner of the stove on the right of the pic.

And it's true... at that level the wall behind the stove doesn't get hot. The only place I ever feel the wall getting warm is above the top surface of the stove.

Good luck with your new T5!

OK, thanks everyone, you have much reassured me!

Elfin, your tile work is so beautiful, you almost inspired us to undertake to build our own hearth. ('Til time considerations got the better of us, and we bought a hearth pad. Maybe some summer.)

Well, we got the stove fired up last night. A little trouble getting going due to (guess what) damp wood. (It seems properly cured, but was delivered in the rain.) It dried out soon enough and we got a good blaze going, filled it up and turned the air down for the night. We were awoken at 1 am by all the smoke alarms going off! We'd opened windows to let the paint fumes out, but it seems not enough. So there I was standing at the front door in my pajamas trying to fan it out.

We're hoping it was just a matter of the paint offgassing and not a potentially ongoing issue. There didn't appear to be smoke in the house, and the fire was burning fine. The person who remodeled our house was really into smoke alarms. There's one in every single room, including about ten feet from the stove.

So we'll test a little more and see if we can make it through a burn without an alarm.

So far, though, very very pleased with the stove. Thanks again to all for your advice in the choosing process!

 

[Elfin]

Thanks, Phoenix! Yeah, you can always tackle a tile project sometime in the future... this time of year it's more important to just get that fire burning! After last night's smoke alarm adventure you must be on the edge of your seat for the next fire. The good news is that our Alderlea really didn't stink much for our 2nd and 3rd burns... that 1st one was NASTY, though! The smoke alarm didn't go off but it was in the Spring and we had the whole house opened up. Even with that, the smell in the house was FOUL. I hope you have better luck with try # 2!