Walker tiny wood cookstove build

Almost have all the parts. A few days ago I sourced most of the remaining parts from someone who was also salvaging to build the continental. She had most of what I was missing. Fun how things workout like that sometimes...

The build is in a claychip cabin I built this year. Id like to have the build finished before colder weather(October) so that I can continue finishing the interior.

I sourced lightweight kiln bricks from a kiln teardown and I am doing a modified version with those instead of CFB.

I re-enforced the floor pretty heavily for the stove footprint( 2*6 12" oc, spanning 4ft with two 4*6 under on large footings.. and jammed in all the foam offcuts and leftovers to beef up the under stove insulation. Probably overkill.

I have about 6 sets of clay brick. They vary slightly in size. The largest set is around 150, then three around 100, and a couple more sets with more than 30. and happens to be the set that I think will work best for the skin on the core.

I'll be asking a lot from the stove, which is probably pretty typical for a first timer, I imagine. I'll be going for domestic hot water and a small radiant pex loop, oven, and a small bench. I
have 3/4in flexible copper, a 36in*21in ceramic glass cooktop, a standard size stove door (around 16*12) that I sourced from tall shadow(on permies). I have lots of random stove pipe parts in 6in to fab cleanouts and such. I have some pieces of CFB and some gasket rope, angle iron, almost all materials except fireclay, which is $150+ in freight at my remote location. I'm unsure what to do about the fireclay situation.

There are a couple additions I'll be doing based on some needs. I have stairs above the stove, and need a way to support the nosings. My plan is to build up a chimney pillar around the stove pipe and run a beam on top at around 6.25ft, to span above the stove, intended in about 16". This will also serve as a cooking utility area.

The next addition is related. I will have my hot water tank in the attic, directly above the stove. I have to run the copper pipe up, so I'll be tucking it into the corner of the chimney pillar where the pipe is located. If figure it it's a win for heat transfer and for Feng Shui.

Because of my arrangement and desire to get the chimney pipe near the peak next to my removable skylight(I rather make sweeping easy), I have modified it so the stove pipe is to the left of the main build. I haven't mapped it out fully, but I think in the winter I determined that it was possible.

This made the start up bypass pretty long, as it has to go under the entire cooktop run, enter the heat exchanger area, clip the copper, and bypass to the chimney pillar. I don't know if it will draw. The chimney is around 18-21ft, mostly insulated chimney pipe. I may have to light a paper in the cleanout under the chimney pillar for cold start. The second thing I was considering is collecting CFB scraps and building a cooktop sized panel. It could be placed on top of the cooktop when cooking is not needed to assist in cold starts, hot water mode, and full winter mode when cooking is not happening.

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Id say this is one of the projects I've been more excited about for this year. It's also an ambitious one. Support along the way would be appreciated.

Today was the first day, I moved a bunch of materials. Marked the area, cut down some Cement board offcuts and made an oversized footprint. Then, I cleaned up the bricks. This took awhile. I got a third of the red brick in after cleaning, some loosely in place, most nearby to the stove sorted by set.

I started to mock up the core, which ended up working quite nicely for opening sizes with the kiln brick sizes that I have on hand, not by chance, I suspect.

I got to a point where I needed to make cuts on red bricks and kiln bricks, and called it a day. I'm thinking to use a 7" tile saw to make cuts, or maybe a skill saw. I'll try both, tomorrow.

My strategy is to dry stack with rough joints, having beefy CB and kiln brick layers, then mark cuts once I get a build up layout that I like.