Safe Wood Stove Installation: How to Use a Thermal Barrier

By Mother Earth News Editors
Published on January 1, 1981
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Because the walls are lined with foil-covered fiberglass duct board, this wood stove installation safely stands only 18 inches from the wall.
Because the walls are lined with foil-covered fiberglass duct board, this wood stove installation safely stands only 18 inches from the wall.
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Here galvanized sheet steel, positioned an inch from the paneled wall, provides a convective flow of cooling air around the wood stove.
Here galvanized sheet steel, positioned an inch from the paneled wall, provides a convective flow of cooling air around the wood stove.

Every well-informed homesteader planning a wood stove installation wants it to be the safest possible … but many folks have discovered that, when they follow the recommendations for safe clearances set down by the National Fire Protection Association, they end up with their heaters smack-dab in the middle of the room. Specifically, the NFPA states that no wood-or coal-burning device should be placed less than 36inches from an unprotected combustible surface. So when you add three feet of clearance to about three feet of stove, and include at least a foot of base pan extension in front (for safe ash removal), a typical wood heater will protrude some seven feet from a wall! That amounts to a fair hunk of living space lost, and also means that your hot stove will interfere with normal traffic in the room.

There is, however, a set of NFPA stipulations which state that wood burning appliances can be safely placed closer to walls if an appropriate thermal barrier is protecting all combustible material. In fact, when such a protector is in place, it’s possible to position your stove a mere 12 inches from a flammable barrier!

At the onset of the 1979-1980 heating season, two of MOTHER EARTH NEWS’ staff members were presented with clearance problems when installing their own wood stoves, and we’re sure that anyone who’s even contemplating wood heat will find the approaches they took–to establish the safest possible installations while maintaining maximum living space–interesting.

Metal Convection Barriers

By positioning a sheet-metal “guard” one inch out from a combustible surface, it’s possible to significantly reduce the temperature to which the flammable wall would otherwise be subjected by a wood stove’s radiant heat. The metal barrier–in this case, 24-gauge galvanized sheet steel–is itself heated by the stove, and establishes a rising convective air flow in the space behind the sheet. This effectively cools the back of the steel and prevents the flammable wall from becoming dangerously overheated.

Building a sheet-metal thermal barrier is very easy, but there are a few important considerations to keep in mind while planning the design. First, there must be a one- to two-inch space between the floor and the steel (to allow air to pass underneath and behind the barrier). And, of course, the lumber that braces the metal (we used 1 1/16″ square stock) must be positioned vertically to avoid impeding the convective flow.

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