Ottertail Country

Ottertail Country
Ottertail South

December 25, 2011

Nearly there.

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It's that holiday time of year again.  Hope all of you are having  good times with family and friends. 



Back to the heater....  I'm really lucky to have a good friend that also happens to be a mason.  The last time I posted, the heater core was almost complete and the face brick was up about 7 feet.




Ivan spent quite a few hours running the face brick up as far as we could go before having to install the shelf on the south face.  This would carry the face brick above it, so we stopped at that point until Paul cut and set the shelf.






Ivan is always upbeat and appears to enjoy the masonry arts.




As you can see, he had to work under that piece of plywood that was sticking out quite far on two sides.  It was there to hold the four plumb lines that ran all the way to the bottom of the heater.  All the face brick was aligned with these lines to keep it all plumb as they went up.




Paul did a little creative work near the top on the north and south sides.  These courses held six bricks standing on end and turned at 45°.




They looked pretty cool when they were done.

















Here you can see the top cap that closed off the entire stack.  We screwed an anchor plate to this that would hold the insulated stainless chimney pipe.




All the face brick is on now and the boys were cleaning up, then the stone caps would be set.
I'll give you some views next time......


So that's it for now.  Have a good Christmas season!

I gotta go, Carlo




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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, there really is no way that we can thank either Paul or Ivan enough for all of the hours of time and effort they have put into this project.... but thank you a whole lot.
We have a fire going right now, and the stove is just toasty.... We are definitely loving it. I hope you all can get a chance to stop by and check it out some time.

Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all of our family and friends. ps

Anonymous said...

Sounds delightfully warm!! We'll be coming by maybe in a couple weeks - and will let you know for sure as the time gets closer :-)

Kristi

Anonymous said...

these photos are again just great ... was looking at Paul's hands in a couple of them and thinking that I'm pretty sure they are the same hands that are playing the accompaniment to O, Come All Ye Faithful in the video Litzy recently posted from this year's Carlson Christmas Eve doings ... how satisfying it must be to do such things, Paul ... and for the rest of us to behold
Mary A

Anonymous said...

couldn't find a way to remove or edit my comment once I hit publish ... meant to add "cheers to all involved with the new stove" ...
Mary A

Anonymous said...

Wow, looking great! Warm Yuletide Greetings!

Anonymous said...

Soooooo cool looking! :) :) Happy New Year! Love, Rosie

Anonymous said...

Had a GREAT time yesterday checking out all the remodeling projects in person!! Everything has turned out beautifully! Gene - you do amazing work!

Thanks again for a wonderful time! The food was fantastic(and the snowshoe pie made it extra special :-)

love,
Kristi & Adam

Anonymous said...

Anyone want to share anything about their Christmas stories here?

We had a swell time at mom's and are looking forward to having an absolutely terrific time at our little family Christmas at the A-Frame on the weekend of the 28th of January.

I miss your comments. :)

ps