Jotul F 602: Small stove for a small house
As
you've all probably figured out by now, we opted for the Jotul F 602
wood stove. Although the princess seemed tiny as we
drove her home,
staggering down the hallway with her 160 pound weight seemed to swell
her ego and she looked larger the closer she got to her
alcove.
I'm very glad we opted
for one of the smallest stoves out there, because the required
clearances for even the tiny Jotul F 602 are pretty extreme --- 21
inches on each side, 13.5 inches off the back (18 inches if you use
single walled stove pipe), and then an 18 inch hearth off the
front. Assuming you send the stove pipe straight up rather than
out the back, that's a 21 square foot area taken up by our little
darling.
Luckily, there are ways
to safely lessen your clearances --- a heat shield on the back of the
wood stove, heat shields on the walls, and double walled stove
pipe. We didn't opt to use every one of these features, but if we
had, we could have lowered the princess's 
footprint
to 11 square feet. The heat shields on the walls felt like enough
for us since they can be homemade and will cut down the huge side
clearances to a mere 13 inches.
We probably won't slide
her into her new home until around Thanksgiving since we still need to
finish the inside of the alcove, but the princess already has a place
of honor in our living room. Both cats have even hopped inside
and proclaimed her worthy. (This is Strider, who is such a shy cat he even
hides his face in photos.)
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Thanks for the article however just wanted to pick you up on the clearances your have detailed. The 21 inches either side is only for required if the walls are if the walls are combustible otherwise only 10 inches are required either side.
See the Jotul site for full spec's