The family cabin received the little Century FW240007 a couple years ago. The little steel stove does a decent job in the small room it's in, but suffers from adding too much heat when it's not very cold out (but you want a little heat) and a small firebox so you don't have a long burn time. This problem is made a bit worse by not having a lot of mass to store the heat. I've had similar sized cast iron stoves that held their heat much longer.
I have a good number of concrete blocks in a pile in the back yard I'd like to place behind and on the sides of the stove to see if this moderates the heat output any. I know they aren't ideal for this job, but they are free and that counts for something when I'm just trying to see if an idea works.
The problem I foresee with this idea and a more permanent replacement is the floor. Between the beam and the sill is 8 feet (16 foot wide cabin on piers). The space is spanned by old growth SYP 2x6s. All of the span calculators say I can go to just over a 9 feet span, but the tables don't tell me the pounds per square foot that this can take. It's probably rated for 40lbs per square foot giving an acceptable amount of deflection, but I don't have any proof on that. The current setup is obviously fine for now as everything is still level after sitting like this for about 70 years, but it didn't have a few hundred lbs of masonry on it before. What I can't find, is how the situation changes if I double up the joists so they are 4x6 or add one in the middle of the current span of 16" on center so there would be one every 8" on center. After I find out if it works or not I can see myself using the concrete blocks to make a new pier to further support the floor under the stove, but that is a few steps down the road. I first want to see if the idea works.
Another thing I don't know is how many lbs of masonry would be needed to make a difference. More than a few hundred lbs would probably be a deal killer as space is important. 300lbs of thermal mass should make a difference that I can notice though.
Does anybody know approximately how doubling up the floor joists, or cutting the on center distance in 2 affects how much weight a floor can take?
Matt
I have a good number of concrete blocks in a pile in the back yard I'd like to place behind and on the sides of the stove to see if this moderates the heat output any. I know they aren't ideal for this job, but they are free and that counts for something when I'm just trying to see if an idea works.
The problem I foresee with this idea and a more permanent replacement is the floor. Between the beam and the sill is 8 feet (16 foot wide cabin on piers). The space is spanned by old growth SYP 2x6s. All of the span calculators say I can go to just over a 9 feet span, but the tables don't tell me the pounds per square foot that this can take. It's probably rated for 40lbs per square foot giving an acceptable amount of deflection, but I don't have any proof on that. The current setup is obviously fine for now as everything is still level after sitting like this for about 70 years, but it didn't have a few hundred lbs of masonry on it before. What I can't find, is how the situation changes if I double up the joists so they are 4x6 or add one in the middle of the current span of 16" on center so there would be one every 8" on center. After I find out if it works or not I can see myself using the concrete blocks to make a new pier to further support the floor under the stove, but that is a few steps down the road. I first want to see if the idea works.
Another thing I don't know is how many lbs of masonry would be needed to make a difference. More than a few hundred lbs would probably be a deal killer as space is important. 300lbs of thermal mass should make a difference that I can notice though.
Does anybody know approximately how doubling up the floor joists, or cutting the on center distance in 2 affects how much weight a floor can take?
Matt
