The VC Defiant manual is a bit lacking for the installation instructions. I know how to build a chimney, and the clearance of the wall thimble is clear.
If you actually sit down with your manual and cut out a template and play cardboard legos, you'll notice that for a corner installation they call for far more clearance than they do for a parallel installation, which happens to be in a corner. It's more than enough to make me suspect a typo in the manual or a bad metric to imperial conversion or cut and paste or god knows what. I'm going to err on the side of caution and do the install parallel to the wall, in a corner. It also makes the hearth pad a lot less goofy to build. If you're playing along at home, they give you a measurement from the center of the flue collar to the walls, but this measurement fails the minimum clearances of the stove corners to the walls. This measurement is consistent when doing the stove parallel to the wall. (It also makes the OAK play along nicely).
The hearth pad is easy - a hearth pad of 54 inches by 54 inches gives me more than enough pad to put any stove on there with some spare room. It's been a marginal pain getting wonderboard at any decent price - Home Depot carries it. Lowes doesn't. Lowes is typically clueless and tried to sell me "fire rated" sheetrock. (Not up to code - you will die attempting this). Wonderboard R-1.92 @ 1 inch, and putting a layer of tile over it (R-12.5 @ 1 inch) means that a half inch of wonderboard (R-.96) with 3/8ths inch tile on top (R-4.69) gives me an R value of 5.65 for the hearth. The defiant manual wants an R value of 0.48 for the hearth. However, this number seems low and I want to make sure we're in the realm of sanity here. I plan on putting 1/8ths plywood under it just to make the whole thing 1 inch tall off the floor. Enough to make sure I trip over the pad reloading the stove in the dark, anyway.
The wall protection requirement is wild and this is really where I want input. According to the VC Defiant manual, a half inch of wonderboard (R-.96) standing one inch off the floor, one inch away from the wall on steel studs is enough to satisfy this requirement. The problem is the manual disagrees with NFFA211 and the jotul manual (the manual I'm "sanity checking" against since it cites code but is lacking on illustration) on if I'm measuring the stoves offset from the "wall" (being the original sheetrock) or the wall shields. The VC Defiant manual has the arrows ending at the shields, the jotul manual has them ending at the walls, and the township says I need to submit drawings before they'll answer any questions.
Also since grout is perfectly happy to catch on fire, I'm planning on using standard issue mortar for the hearth pad. However, I really doubt this is going to work on the wall shields. Anyone have a fireproof grout to suggst so I can tile vertical surfaces?
If you actually sit down with your manual and cut out a template and play cardboard legos, you'll notice that for a corner installation they call for far more clearance than they do for a parallel installation, which happens to be in a corner. It's more than enough to make me suspect a typo in the manual or a bad metric to imperial conversion or cut and paste or god knows what. I'm going to err on the side of caution and do the install parallel to the wall, in a corner. It also makes the hearth pad a lot less goofy to build. If you're playing along at home, they give you a measurement from the center of the flue collar to the walls, but this measurement fails the minimum clearances of the stove corners to the walls. This measurement is consistent when doing the stove parallel to the wall. (It also makes the OAK play along nicely).
The hearth pad is easy - a hearth pad of 54 inches by 54 inches gives me more than enough pad to put any stove on there with some spare room. It's been a marginal pain getting wonderboard at any decent price - Home Depot carries it. Lowes doesn't. Lowes is typically clueless and tried to sell me "fire rated" sheetrock. (Not up to code - you will die attempting this). Wonderboard R-1.92 @ 1 inch, and putting a layer of tile over it (R-12.5 @ 1 inch) means that a half inch of wonderboard (R-.96) with 3/8ths inch tile on top (R-4.69) gives me an R value of 5.65 for the hearth. The defiant manual wants an R value of 0.48 for the hearth. However, this number seems low and I want to make sure we're in the realm of sanity here. I plan on putting 1/8ths plywood under it just to make the whole thing 1 inch tall off the floor. Enough to make sure I trip over the pad reloading the stove in the dark, anyway.
The wall protection requirement is wild and this is really where I want input. According to the VC Defiant manual, a half inch of wonderboard (R-.96) standing one inch off the floor, one inch away from the wall on steel studs is enough to satisfy this requirement. The problem is the manual disagrees with NFFA211 and the jotul manual (the manual I'm "sanity checking" against since it cites code but is lacking on illustration) on if I'm measuring the stoves offset from the "wall" (being the original sheetrock) or the wall shields. The VC Defiant manual has the arrows ending at the shields, the jotul manual has them ending at the walls, and the township says I need to submit drawings before they'll answer any questions.
Also since grout is perfectly happy to catch on fire, I'm planning on using standard issue mortar for the hearth pad. However, I really doubt this is going to work on the wall shields. Anyone have a fireproof grout to suggst so I can tile vertical surfaces?
