What to use behind/side of wood cook stove??
 

What do you have behind your wood stoves for fire proof/safety?? Been finding out usually need an inch of air space on most anything from combustibles...stove needs to sit 34" from behind of combustibles & sides are 27" from combustibles....don't want the stove out in the middle of floor either...

Trying to figure out what would be best to use & also look nice without eating my pocketbook to.....would hardy 4x8 sheets of siding work with an inch air space from combustibles?? i only need something 4 feet high i guess as the pipe i am using is double insulated....

Not really any stove people close to my area other than St Louis or Springfield as i am in the middle of nowhere,talked to a couple of old timers & they said they always used a flue/sometimes heat shield so did not know.....insurance company guy is a college fool & said go by the clearances that came with the stove....so am trying to do just that but not sure what to use!!

Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated....sure be glad when i get this all figured out!!

Cement board spaced out an inch would work. It comes in 4x8 ft. sheets. You would need a carbide blade in a circular saw to cut it. Or the lumber yard or big box store may cut it for you.
Another plan is to use face brick 2" thick instead of the full brick's 4". Mortar it up like a brick wall. It would look better than cement board, too.
Or just stack regular bricks on edge with mortar. You might be able to reclaim these from a landfill.

I have a tin heat shield out an inch behind mine. The one I had at another place I just taped a piece of tinfoil to the wall. Taped the top edge and let it hang. You will not believe how cold the wall is behind it.

Masonry. Our wood stove is built right into the center of our tiny cottage so that the heat of the stove is soaked up by the building's 100,000 lbs of mass. This means we can do hot faster burns and just let the stove die out over night. The house stays warm from the stored heat. You can mimic this somewhat in an existing house by building a brick wall behind the stove. Be sure the floor is strong enough.

My woodstove has river rock behind it (18" away).

I was thinking about putting a smaller wood stove in my wood shop. It would be closer to the walls. I will put some cement backer board that I have and then some ceramic tile I have extra of. Put the tile on with a mastic and grout between.

Box Fan. You need to circulate the air anyway, so just do as I do. I keep a box fan close to the back wall blowing toward the front. But then I have a box wood stove so most of the blown air is traveling underneath the stove toward the living room.

What do you do when power is out for the box fan?

We just installed one. Cement board with ceramic tile beneath and behind it.

Brick wall.

This plus use the ceramic fence post insulators to space the cement board off the wall and leave an inch or two on top and bottom so the air can circulate behind it.

I always liked to lay up brick behind the wood stoves leaving a small air space twixt the brick and wall.

I was just going to say that same thing.

And, so far as a floor that ISN'T strong enough, you might investigate manufactured masonry, instead. Ie, decorative bricks/rocks. They're still a clay material, which will hold heat, but not NEARLY as heavy as they real thing.

Thanks for the ideas......the stove is gonna be in the basement on a concrete floor-but am putting 'something'-fire board i guess underneath it-or might go with some sort of tile-guess depends on what i use on the wall behind/beside stove...Thanks~~

I put 1 foot patio squares underneath my wood stove on a wood floor. Works very well. I used to have a metal and asbestos shield. It curled.

In that case, build a REAL brick wall!

Not only will it provide fire-proofing, but it'll make your stove more efficient by storing, and then slowly releasing, heat.

I do have the proper spacing required so if the power is out, nothing to really worry about. But I mainly keep the fan behind the stove to circulate the warm air. I also keep the living room ceiling fan running.

I overlooked the word "Cook" in the question. So I really have no experience in using a wood cook stove and don't really know how hot they get. I do however, have experience eating some of the best biscuits ever made in a wood cookstove. I had a aunt who lived next door to us who had a wood cookstove in her house and she would make biscuits, rolls, and cakes in it. She also cooked the best eat'n duck I ever ate in the wood cookstove.

I remember going out and cutting fire wood with my uncle. He would save all the little limbs for my aunt to cook with in her stove.

One problem with having the wood stove in the basement is moisture rotting the metal. Keep the basement very dry.

use cement board instead of drywall or any other wallboard and put some thin veneer of brick over top or tile..with grout..it will be gorgeous and not very thick..but you do have to be really careful..even studs will heat up..under the cement board

I would ask your insurance company what they require also. Most have a list of how they should be installed.

Carol K

In my own case, I contructed the wall behind the stove out of totally non-combustables. I used steel 2X4's for the framing, insulated the wall with paper-free fiberglass, then covered it with cement board, like other's here are suggesting. I even attached cement board to the ceiling, where the stove-pipe passes through the second floor.

Don't worry about cutting the cement board yourself. You can get a diamond blade for your circular saw at Home Depot for about 15$, and it will slice through cement board in seconds. Most likely the worst part of working with cement board is that is is heavy, and easy to break. Handling it so it won't break is definately a two person job!

You have a number of great suggestions. To help make sense of them, these are the factors:

Appearance: You want something that "looks" right for you. Only you can decide that.

IR reflectivity: how much of the heat is reflected back towards the heat source. The greater the reflectivity, the less heat will transfer. Metal - even aluminum foil - will do this easily. A light gauge sheet metal is an inexpensive, lightweight, and flexible choice.

Thermal storage and "flattening" of peak heat. The greater the mass, the more the effect. Concrete, stone, water will all do this. The heat from a cookstove is generally not going to get to a level of continuous burn that would ignite a wall, unlike a barrel stove or large capacity wood stove. That means a short high temp fire can heat up the thermal mass without it reaching ignition temps of the studding behind it.

Code: If you live in an area that requires following a building code, or you have insurance, you MUST work within the code for your installation to be approved and insured. That means getting a copy of the code and basing your choice on the limited options there. The insurance company guy may or may not be a fool, but he is correct.

Truthfully, your bigger potential for fire - BY FAR - is the flue pipe and chimney, which will build up creosote. Be sure to use the proper thimble, and even go beyond that if possible. Also, make it easy to change out the stovepipe going to the thimble because it will have to be cleaned and replaced periodically. IMO, the ONLY safe stovepipe is one that can have a major creosote fire inside to the point that it glows, and have NOTHING around it in any danger of combustion. That means changing out pipes every couple of years to eliminate weak spots from corrosion. If you can push on a pipe and have it give or feel "wrong" in ANY area, it is long past the time when it was safe.