Well, I'm on the verge of unloading my propane insert, so soon enough I'll have the moolah for my chimney liner & hearth expansion.
After much deliberating - and reading on hearth.com - I'm pretty sure the Jotul Oslo is the way to go for me. I've got plenty of side clearance for the side door, and I've got about 1500 SF upstairs with lots of doorways and bends. I don't plan on being a full-time burner (at the moment), as I do have those 2 pellet stoves still, but for power failures and the coldest nights and for when my boys are old enough to split wood and for those serendipitous years when the wood fairy has paid me a visit, I'd like to do it right and have the capacity to do full-time burning.
Anyway, here's the sad, stoveless state of my fireplace now. Blue tape represents about a doubling of the hearth depth to ~40".
And here's what I'm hoping to see by Thanksgiving. The Oslo itself was a free model in Sketchup's online model database (they also have the Castine, the F3 and others), which goes a loooong way in helping me visualize it, don't you think?. I had to create the tiles as custom components - they're 6x6 tiles with a 2x6 border. Accent tiles are just for the concept.
The whole process of converting wood+masonry hearth to tile has been discussed on this forum in the past, and again recently, and I've gotten enough ideas to hopefully pull it off myself.
Now for my question for Oslo owners - how far forward of the wall does the stove need to be for me to open the side door wide enough for loading? As it is drawn above & below, I have about 1" more I can go forward and still meet the 18" clearance requirement, and the rear legs are just about flush with the masonry. Will this suffice, or am I going to curse the side door handle every time I bump it up against the brick and wish I had put another row of tile in?
After much deliberating - and reading on hearth.com - I'm pretty sure the Jotul Oslo is the way to go for me. I've got plenty of side clearance for the side door, and I've got about 1500 SF upstairs with lots of doorways and bends. I don't plan on being a full-time burner (at the moment), as I do have those 2 pellet stoves still, but for power failures and the coldest nights and for when my boys are old enough to split wood and for those serendipitous years when the wood fairy has paid me a visit, I'd like to do it right and have the capacity to do full-time burning.
Anyway, here's the sad, stoveless state of my fireplace now. Blue tape represents about a doubling of the hearth depth to ~40".
And here's what I'm hoping to see by Thanksgiving. The Oslo itself was a free model in Sketchup's online model database (they also have the Castine, the F3 and others), which goes a loooong way in helping me visualize it, don't you think?. I had to create the tiles as custom components - they're 6x6 tiles with a 2x6 border. Accent tiles are just for the concept.
The whole process of converting wood+masonry hearth to tile has been discussed on this forum in the past, and again recently, and I've gotten enough ideas to hopefully pull it off myself.
Now for my question for Oslo owners - how far forward of the wall does the stove need to be for me to open the side door wide enough for loading? As it is drawn above & below, I have about 1" more I can go forward and still meet the 18" clearance requirement, and the rear legs are just about flush with the masonry. Will this suffice, or am I going to curse the side door handle every time I bump it up against the brick and wish I had put another row of tile in?
