Jotul Rangeley Install before and After Pictures... Any thoughts?

Let me explain to you how nice that is....

seeing that made me picture jackhammering the entire brick hearth which takes up one wall in my house. Taking it down to bare concrete and no longer a raised hearth. Then putting down cement board and doing it exactly like you did yours with the nice stacked stone on the walls and a stand-alone stove.

I'v enever pictured that before, and now I wish I had it.

Beautiful.

I would love it if you could give some details as to how you did the wall . . . what you used . . . how you attached it, etc. since I would definitely consider doing something similar to my own installation. I tell ya . . . this looks wicked sharp.

Thefront door has andirons to protect the glass. How are you going to stuff big logs in?

It is 7" between andirons and top of door opening.If splits are larger remove the andirons and burn with wood set back some.Wood has to be away from glass anyways for airwash.Good point though.

Went down and looked at a Rangeley finally today, live and in person. Looks pretty nice, but if the rumor that they may build a second version without the top load feature is true, that would be more of my preference.

The stove looks well built. $2509 for the plain jane, an additional $100 for the cast iron side panels, which the floor model had on it. Does come with the rear heat shield standard.

On another note, Jotul wants $216 for the "stainless" steel secondary baffle that is rusting out on my almost 4 year old Castine F400. Yikes, their parts are not cheap.

You could just about buy 2 "expensive" catalysts for a Woodstock stove for that money.

Interesting perspective on the cost of that baffle after only 4 yrs! I hope my T-5 baffle holds up MUCH longer than that! I will have to look at the warranty to see how long that part is waranteed ..The one on the T-5 is S/S and looks pretty heavy duty, I'd like to see a pic of the F400 baffle we are talking about..

Ray

Ray, you have nothing to worry about it has a lifetime gaurantee which is one the reasons I bought the T6.

NICE!! The warrantee was a factor in the stove buying decision as well.. Lots of factors came into play...

Ray

Awesome. Just awesome.

OK here it goes....

I originally got quoted $6500 (including stove) for a complete install, without a non-combustible wall. After seeing that number I said to myself, let me try this on my own.

As you see I started out with an empty canvas. I needed to do everything from scratch, down to the chimney. I started off my studying the Jotul specs and clearances needed as well as pulling the permit to do this job. So I measured, designed on paper, then ordered everything.

I started with the floor. There is an inch of cement board with stone on top. I spread semi-dry mortar to create a bed for the stone and when "it fit" I spread thin-set under the stone and added a bit more water to both clean the stone and create a nice "seam" between the stones. I created a mold of the air vent and found a rock that would fit over it in order to punch it out after the inspection. I know people might shriek at this, but I feel its far back enough that amber wont get in as it is also on the side that the door opens to. This floor is enough according to Jotul.

Next the wall... I cut concrete board to fit the area I needed. I used the left over cuts to create the 1" spacers that I needed from the sheetrock. Marked up the board and made sure I was securing it to the studs. I put up the concrete board and was ready to lay up the rock.

Next the stone... I used New England Thinstone. I tried laying it out on my deck to get the pattern, which I did, but as soon as I started I ended up braking the pattern and went stone by stone. That is the art and most difficult of the job. It does require patience and since I was doing this for myself and not getting paid for it, I put in the extra love. I also purchased corner pieces to make the edges work cleaner. As you build the wall you have less and less pieces to work with and my lucky stars, I had pieces that worked well at the top being nice and flat. i again used thin-set since it has better bonding properties than the old mortar.

Finally, placed the stove in place.