Brick Surround temp

[schultzp85]

Hi All, I have been wood burning for a few years with a free-standing wood burner in a different room in our house. This year, we added an insert into our old fireplace. A Hearthstone GMi 70. I have only had a few smaller burns trying to get the wood burner broken in. Last night was the first real, overnight fire I had in it. I noticed that the temperature of the bricks and the wall above the insert were very warm, I could hold my hand to them and used a cooking thermostat to get a temp around 140 ish was the hottest I found. I inserted a flex liner down the old flew so everything is brand new. I did have to cut out the back and some of the sides of the old heatilator to get the insert to fit. I was just wondering if that's normal to get a warm-up of the surrounding (mainly directly above it). There was no smell of anything burning, just the warmth of it. The front of the unit itself was around 250.

Thanks