When I bought wood burners, I didn't quite realise that they need some maintenance. They tend to have something called fire rope on the inside of the door, to form a sort of a seal. You don't want the metal of the door directly on the metal of the stove, but whatever you want in between, it should be fire resistant, be a bit of a buffer so closing the door of your stove doesn't get too noisy, and keep the fumes of the fire in. Cue the fire rope.
After a while, my fire rope was starting to come undone. Initially I didn't know what to do with that, until Miles told me you can just glue it back. And I did that for several years. But I had to do it again and again and again. It didn't seem to really fit; there is a gully on the inside of my door, which is only 7 mm wide, but the original fire rope was several times that width. Strange!
You don't have to accept the original fire rope, of course. You can just buy that stuff, in several sizes, in DIY stores. Neil figured I should really do that, as it would actually stay put better if it fit inside that little gutter. He had a point.
I bought some, and a more generous supply of heat resistant glue than I had been buying so far, and now we decided to put it in place. We took the door off, removed the old fire rope, cleaned out the little gutter, and glued the new stuff in position. Then I lit a fire to set the glue. And it worked!
Neil had been a bit nervous that the smaller fire rope wouldn't properly seal. I will soon find out!
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| The refurbished door, with the old fire rope for comparison |
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