Can You Put A Wood Stove In A Prefab Fireplace

As a practical matter installing most inserts into a prefab fireplace will require a unit with a very small firebox.

Can you put a wood stove in a prefab fireplace.

Or there is wood in the walls a few inches from your fireplace and a stove in front with its connecting pipe will not meet the required clearances. Now wood burning inserts can also be placed in prefabricated fireplaces but again you are going to need to be careful on what insert you buy as not all inserts will work. Hearth pads are sections of fireproof material that can be used underneath wood pellet and gas stoves to protect floors from sparks and embers and on the back walls behind heating appliances to protect the walls from intense heat. There are however some considerations.

A wood burning stove can be installed in an existing fireplace subject to there being a sufficient amount of space available in the fireplace to hold a stove and there being a proper chimney. A wood burning fireplace insert must be used in a properly rated manufactured fireplace or masonry fireplace. Unlike factory built fireplaces a wood stove insert is not designed to be installed into a framed wall on its own. Field modifications it is extremely inadvisable to install a wood stove such as a wood burning insert into a prefab fireplace.

You can also taper the chase above the fireplace. The base of the chase must accommodate the framing dimensions of your fireplace. The size of the stove however must be right for both the fireplace and the chimney it uses. Use caution when attempting to install after market glass doors too that may interfere with the fireplace s design to circulate and disperse heat properly.

There are also other considerations that need to taken into account when looking to have a wood stove installed a your fireplace. A fireplace is already fireproof in a sense so you should be able to use it for a stove location with little work involved. An outer frame called a surround helps cover the gap between the edges of the insert and the fireplace. One of the biggest problems that homeowners run into with prefabricated fireplaces is the wood inside the walls that is only a few inches away from their fireplace then adding any old insert will not always meet the clearance requirements.

Smaller dimensions for a rough frame of a chimney chase are about two square feet.