Fireplaces, Heating Stoves, Flues and Chimneys - Between the wall and the wood burning stove?

My wife and I just puchased a home with a wood burning stove. Between the pipe and the plaster wall, the old owners have a sheet of something - cement board, maybe? - painted to match the walls. It sets out about 1 inch from the wall. The home inspector said that I need to maintain that space so the wall doesn't get hot. What can I build between the wall and the stove as in a brick surrouns or a mantel or some kind of stonework to make it look better? And do I need to maintain that 1 inch gap?

You could use other materials as long as they are not combustible AND they do not allow the wood frame wall to get too warm. The air space does wonders for dissipating the heat build-up.

The trick will be to show the inspector that is accomplishes the job.

It is nor a simple as throwing 5/8" drywall on a garage wall and calling it a fire resistant wall since its fire resistance is measured in minutes and not hours like a wood stove.

You may want to check with your insurance company for accepable substitutes. The only catch is that your company may not know you have a wood stove and some balk at insuring them.

On our wood stove the distance from stove to wall is only applicable to combustables and you can have absolutely anything noncombustable inbetween. We were told by the installer that a gap between the stove surround and wall wouldn't do alot of good simply because it takes some clever engineering to be fully functional and to pass inspection, but maybe you have that. All distance measurements came from the stove manual. See if you can find one for your stove - it's a good reassurance you are doing things safely.

If the cement board is indeed that you could simply mortar your stone on that.

So, if I need to maintain the gap, how do I build a nice brick backing or tilework behind it and maintain the gap?

But if I don't need the gap, then I could tile or mortar stone or brick to the wall as a nice focal point.

Arrrghh. This silly "gap" is the thing!

You do not like the gap and insurance companies do not like wood burners installed improperly or even wood burners -period. That is the situation.

My mother's insurance company refused to insure her even if it has installed according to code - they did not want the risk of an amateur burning fires in the house they were insuring.

You can always apply cultured stone, veneer ed brick or any other adhered (with mortar) thin veneer to the the approved wall material in front of the gap.

You cannot use real brick unless your structure is designed for the extra load (not likely).

Just make sure you have not violated the required information from the insurance companies. Some are good to work with and some do not want wood burners and what comes with them.

Dick

Thanks. All good points. Basically I should concerned with safety before aesthetics. Perhaps I can do something with a tile or with paint to make the best of the space behind the stove. Question, though, do I need to have the strange cement backer board? A lot of pictures I see with wood stoves simply stand alone and pipe into the wall.

Having a non combustible surface behind the stove reduces the distance required behind the wood stove, provided there is a 1 inch airgap between the wall and the non combustible surface. In our case, we had a wood burner installed with the pipe going out straight through the sheetrock, with a minimum distance allowed being about 14 inches. 2 years later, we had a cultured stone wall built behind it which was done by mounting cement board on the wall with 1 inch spacers behind it, then mounting cultured stone to the cement board. This reduced the minimum distance to 7 inches, which our insurance company was fine with it since it was done to manufacturers specifications. Other factors that affect the required distances are if the pipe exits out the back, side or top of the stove and if you're using single or double wall pipe. If you don't have one, getting the owners manual for your stove shouldn't be difficult and that will have all the spec's for required clearences.

I had a cement board with a 1" gap between the backside of the cement board and the wall. This was for air to circulate between the two wall surfaces to disapate heat.
I covered my cement board front surface with faux fieldstone heat retardent material. It looks great in my opinion. Just another idea. Building inspector was happy.

Paint (at least regular latex) may bubble and peel from the heat. Go with something that will withstand a few hundred degrees without cracking, etc.