We finished the tiling, and then finally got our stove installed last weekend! Please see the attached picture. (The shoe molding around the hearth is still missing, so the edge looks unfinished. This is also before we caulked the expansion joint.)
It was a difficult installation because our flue is narrow and has quite a bend near the bottom, so we are glad we didn't attempt this ourselves. The guys worked for six hours or so. They had to take out the insert again once because they hadn't listened to our advice of raising it up to the level of the hearth extension with Durock (they said the leveling nuts in the back would take care of that). In the end, though, they needed the Durock in order for the insert to be positioned correctly under the flue.
We have burned the first small fires to cure the paint. Even a one-log fire of 45 minutes got our living room temperature up to a toasty 78 degrees (but of course we had 50 degrees outside and the room had been heated to 70 degrees before, so it didn't have to work too hard). The steel top of the Drolet insert stays too hot to touch for hours after the fire goes out, so it seems to hold the heat pretty well.
Thank you all again for all your advice! I'll report back when we get to tiling the fireplace surround.
It was a difficult installation because our flue is narrow and has quite a bend near the bottom, so we are glad we didn't attempt this ourselves. The guys worked for six hours or so. They had to take out the insert again once because they hadn't listened to our advice of raising it up to the level of the hearth extension with Durock (they said the leveling nuts in the back would take care of that). In the end, though, they needed the Durock in order for the insert to be positioned correctly under the flue.
We have burned the first small fires to cure the paint. Even a one-log fire of 45 minutes got our living room temperature up to a toasty 78 degrees (but of course we had 50 degrees outside and the room had been heated to 70 degrees before, so it didn't have to work too hard). The steel top of the Drolet insert stays too hot to touch for hours after the fire goes out, so it seems to hold the heat pretty well.
Thank you all again for all your advice! I'll report back when we get to tiling the fireplace surround.
Wanta come to south Alabama and do mine??? ;-)
