The stove is beginning to take shape! The black facia in the photo above isn’t fixed in place yet as Ian needs to do the brickwork behind it. He’s got thermal bricks which he will build the main body of the stove, keeping the bricks from the old one in place for added insulation.
There’s another door which will be fitted where the hole is currently. I think the modern versions of this type of stove have a glass door, however the older ones are all cast iron metal like this.
Ian’s been polishing the brass fittings on the front of the stove and it’s amazing how well it’s coming up. We were very lucky really to find one at such a good price , so it’s an added bonus really that it’s looking so nice.
The stove is ‘normal’ height so we’ll also raise the height of the work surfaces on either side. Funny how we’ve just got sort of used now to having worktops and doorhandles at knee height 🤣
As we expected, there had been another stove there as the chimney opening had been made smaller. No doubt, as we thought, they took out a stove like the one we’re putting in and replacing it with the stove with the gas pipe running through the wood burning oven.
We went to a builder’s yard in Xove, which is somewhere we don’t often – well, at all really – go to. It’s a town about 10km away and although it has a population of around 3,000 people, which is quite a bit bigger than San Cibrao, it doesn’t really offer anything we can’t get there – other than building supplies!
We’ve got thermal clay which will go on the top which the big cast iron top will fix onto.
So next step is Ian building the brick inside – and then getting the front and top on!