So it’s the weekend again and I’ve been tinkering with a few bits around the caravan, this weekend it was time to repaint the flue for the wood stove and replace the glass in the front of it too.
When we first brought the wood stove back in the summer we put the main stove itself in the caravan in position where we wanted it but then we left the flue outside – not thinking it would rain before we installed it!
Well, we went on holiday and of course it rained – when we got back I realised that we now had a flue with orange rust deposits all over it…
You should be able to see the rust that had formed on it in the picture above – and to say I was a little annoyed would be a bit of an understatement, having only brought it new a few weeks earlier.
Anyway, I stuffed it under some tarp and left it until this weekend to sort out, I thought out of sight out of mind, which was the case for me but Dena kept reminding me to sort it out.
So off I went to the shops yesterday morning and brought some steel wool and some wood stove paint and set about rubbing the flue down.
It took a bit longer than I thought it would, but then that was because I wanted to get the flue completely stripped of the previous paint just so that when I repainted it again it would look even and not patchy.
After about 3 hours of sanding and repainting this was the end product…
Obviously it looks so much better now, nice and smooth and black!
The spray on paint was rather wiffy stuff and I had to stop half way down the flue on the first coat as I’m sure I inhaled some and felt like I had sniffed an aerosol in a paper bag … err, not that I have done that before and know what it smells like, but that’s what I presume it would smell like … ahem, anyway where was I…..
So that’s that done and dusted now, it’s sat under covers ready safe away from the rain and damp for when we install it next weekend.
I also had to replace the glass in the front of the stove yesterday too – for some reason the small pane of glass had cracked right down the middle….
You can see the cracked glass in the picture above.
Not sure why it cracked – we were sat on the sofa one evening and heard a crack and didn’t think anything of it, until the next morning when we noticed the cracked glass.
After taking out the glass I realised that what could have caused it was the fixing nuts on the bottom of the glass perhaps being a little tight.
When I put in some new glass and started to tighten the nuts I noticed the glass straining under the pressure, so I didn’t do them up as tight as they were done previously – hopefully we won’t have any smoke pouring out the front of the stove, we’ll find out soon enough!
It was quite an enjoyable day messing around with the wood stove, I like doing little things like that and it also makes the day whizz by as I get enthralled in it.
So, whats next … ah yes, measuring up the space behind the wood stove ready to fit some reflective material to send the heat from the wood stove back into the caravan. That’s a job for midweek, today I’m off food shopping and then chillaxing for the rest of the day…
Until next time.
WeeMike
