When we purchased our home in 2017, one of the features my husband and I loved most was the wood stove. The problem was that it was the original stove from 1990, and needed replacing within a few years. We started to notice with regular cleaning and fireside nights, that it was becoming a less efficient source of heat, harder to maintain, and that the brickwork was starting to fail. Since it is original to our home, we are able to replace it without changing the footprint impacting our home insurance.
*Disclaimer: before starting the removal and replacement of a wood stove ensure to contact your City Planning and a local WETT Certified Inspectors to ensure all removal and installing criteria can done safely and to code.*
After having our home inspected by WETT Certified Inspectors, we determined that our current chimney and all surrounding brickwork would have to be replaced due to years of deterioration and no longer being safely to code. Our quote, for just the chimney repair, was upwards of $20,000 and months of permits for the rebuild, installation of the new wood stove, brickwork, and certification were going to be in addition to this. An alternative would be to install a new chimney pipe through our roof, and to firesafe our brickwork so that we would be able to keep our room profile without changing the layout of our home and avoid a costly rebuild. Of course, we jumped at the chance to tackle a new project, but we wanted to ensure it was done safely and economically by doing a lot of the work on our own.
After visiting our local Home Hardware, Pioneer Home Hardware in Campbell River, we found that all of the supplies needed for our new wood stove renovation were available locally. It was time to start! Although my husband is very handy, we decided to have my dad and I tackle the project, as he has a lot of experience with tiling and drywall installation, which is similar to the process we required for covering up the brick.
After removing the existing wood stove, our first step was to cover the existing brick. After consulting a local wood stove installation company and contractors from Home Hardware, we determined that we could cover the brick with fire retardant Hardibacker Boards, similar to what is used in shower installation. We installed them by first applying a construction adhesive followed by cement screws into the existing brick. This process was pretty simple, and we had a lot of measuring and leveling to ensure that the entire brick surface would be covered.
Following the boards going up, we covered the seams of each board with mesh taping covered by cement mortar to act like glue between the seams. This process is very similar to drywall installation, which is where my dad came in super handy. It is important to allow drying time once the boards are seamed. We gave the wall a full 48 hours before sanding and moving onto the next step. Once dried, we sanded the wall and seams with 80 grit sandpaper and our orbital sander. The following step involved creating a seamless wall, transitioning from drywall on either side of the brick to behind the wood stove. To do this we purchased a quick dry drywall compound and applied a skim coat to the entire surface of the wall. Now was the time to repeat. Once again, we sanded, this time with 120 grit, skim coat, sanded again, skim coat, sanded yet again, until we had a completely smooth wall. I cannot emphasize enough how important careful sanding is between coats! We had decided to paint the newly skimmed Hardibacker Boards the same colour as our walls to ensure they flowed well with the room.
Now onto the floors and platform for our new stove. We loved the look and feel of the bricks, but the outdated colour and texture didn’t fit well with our aesthetics of the home. An alternative we found at Home Hardware were brick tiles, by Julien Tiles. These beautiful tiles are handmade in Italy and will withstand the heat and the weight of our new wood stove.
Installation was very similar to tilework we had done previously in our kitchen backsplash. The biggest hurdle was choosing the colour of grout.
When tiling it is important to have a level surface and because of the heat we decided to also level our floors with leftover Hardibacker Boards, similar to what we had done over the brick wall. Once we had a level surface, it’s a matter of cement mortar placed over the floor followed by adding tiles and spacers determined by the pattern of your choice. We decided on a stacked pattern as we wanted the look to be timeless in style but also modern enough for our ever-changing decor. The grout we chose is called ‘Cocoa’ which quite literally reminded me of ‘hot cocoa’ – I do believe the name may have swayed my choice!
Once we had the brick covered and the flooring tile down it was time to call in the installers. It is important to use professionals for installation as we needed to ensure all the safety requirement were met, and that we would be fully certified for our home insurance and meet the WETT inspection. This came to a cost of around $2,000 and was completed in one day. Originally, we had wanted our wood stove pipe to go straight up into our ceiling and through to our roof, however because of our ceiling joists, we had to make a slight bend in our pipes to avoid having to completely remove our ceiling and re-route the new chimney. We ended up loving the offset bend, and I think it adds a bit of personality to our quirky home.
From start to finish this wood stove renovation has been in a timeline of almost a year, due to permits, initial assessment, our DIY portion and installation, as we wanted to make sure everything was done correctly so that we could enjoy our wood stove for years to come. Now when we look at the cozy corner of our living room, I know we are able to help heat our home more efficiently, with a natural source of heat, and enjoy years of fireside moments for our family.
As a young family, we would never have been able to complete this extensive renovation without the help of Home Hardware, who provided us with not only the materials but also their expertise and advice.
