Wood Stove Heat Shield

If you don't have a proper wood stove heat shield in place, the heat from your stove may damage the surrounding area.

What is a wood stove heat shield? Newer wood stoves have heat shields incorporated so that they can be installed quite close to walls and other normally combustible places. With wood stoves, heat output is unlimited, or nearly so. The stovepipe or chimney connector must also usually be installed.

With newer wood stoves, oftentimes, the stoves can be put as little as 6 inches away from the wall with no additional protection. This is because wood stove heat shields are already included as a part of the stove itself. However, older models will need to have wood stove heat shield installed to be safe. In addition, chimneys and other accessories will need to be heat shielded as appropriate. Most newer models come with this protection built in. Check your model's instruction manual to find out what type of extra wood stove heat shielding you need for your accessories, if any.

Regardless of whether or not your stove is older or newer, you'll need a wood stove heat shield of sorts on the floor. This is also sometimes known as a "hearth." Newer stoves do have built-in heat shields on the bottom, too. In this case, you might need as little as one-quarter inch of ceramic tile on the floor, mostly to protect the floor itself from sparks. However, if your stove does not have such protection, you'll need much more protection on the floor itself. In fact, at least one model of wood stove on the market requires that no combustible materials at all be placed under the stove. This means, for example, that you cannot place your wood stove on wood flooring and must place it on a concrete slab, basically.

Using your wood stove

First of all, you should know that you need to follow certain safety precautions when you use your wood stove. Namely, this does not mean that you can burn just anything in it. In fact, some people have bragged about what types of things they've burned and even that they've made their stoves "glow red." This is not a good thing to have happen, since wood stoves, too, have certain precautions you need to make in order to stay safe.

With a wood stove, you'll need to burn wood, the 100% natural thing, as your material. (This is as opposed to paper, particleboard, or other inappropriate materials in your wood stove. You should also not burn things such as wood stove pellets, which are for a particular type of stove and not the classic type of wood stove.) In addition, if your stove is of a newer type, guidelines generally say that no combustible surface within a 70-degree room should rise above 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you do not have a newer listed stove and are using an older unlisted stove, you should take the additional following precautions:

• If your stove is not listed or is older than 20 years, you'll need to check with an official to make sure that you are even permitted to install your stove.
• If you are allowed to install the older stove, floor protection should go at least 18 inches in every direction.
• Do not saw the wood stove's legs off or otherwise make them shorter, since distance from the floor is part of the flooring protection provided. You also need maximum air circulation under the stove for best operation.

Wood stove accessories

What wood stove accessories should you use? If you use your wood stove just for heating, you'll need a galvanized metal container to store ashes in until cool enough to dispose of, a fire safe brush or broom to sweep out ashes with, and some type of storage for the wood you plan to use in the wood stove. A poker is also helpful, of course, since it will help break apart logs when they're burning down.

If you're going to use your wood stove for other tasks such as cooking, you'll need a whole variety of cookware and accessories to make this possible. In general, regular cookware (other than cast iron) does not hold up at all on in a wood stove.With a little homework and some careful installation, your wood stove should provide you many years of warmth and utility.