Kitchen remodelling the Walden Effect way
We've decided to make a tiny
addition to the trailer to ease wood stove installation. The four
foot by two foot "room" will give us a bit more air space around the
stove inside and (more importantly) will allow us to send the stove
pipe straight up and then out a roof built around it, rather than
risking causing leaks by cutting a hole in the trailer roof. The
supreme ease with which you can extend the wall by a couple of feet is
one of my favorite parts of trailer
life.
While
Mark is making space outside, I took on the task of
clearing space inside. Kitchen remodeling, Walden Effect style,
consists of finding room for endless sacks of sweet potatoes and
garlic. Oh, and can I fit a few more butternut squash on that
shelf? I was very proud of myself for being able to take down
shelves from one wall and put them up in a new order on the other wall
--- an easy task for Mark, but I wouldn't have even known where to
start when faced with such a project just four years ago.
Everything I build could be better, but I don't mind living with my
imperfections since each is a lesson in self-sufficiency.
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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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Our plan is to add roofing tin to the side of the new room, spaced out 1" from the wall. This is supposed to be the best way to protect your wall and is rated to allow you to put your stove closer to the wall than with the method you're suggesting. We'll definitely make some sort of floor protection too, though we haven't decided out of what yet.
Also, from what I've read, you get more efficiency out of your stove and it's supposed to be safer if you don't add elbows. That's why we decided to go out the roof rather than the wall.
We would extend the room out more, but then it would be too close to my asparagus...
I checked it out for my recent gas heater installation with a ≈2" pipe; the resistance of a 90° elbow was roughly equivalent to a yard of pipe. (it depends on the diameter of the pipe, the construction of the elbow and the expected gas speed)
Usually there is a restriction to the length of the stove pipe you can use on a furnace.