JØTUL GF 160 FIREPLACE INSTALLATION, PART 5: Venting and final installation

There's nothing quite like cutting a hole through your house. We were on the final stretch of installing our Jøtul GF 160 and, like I joked with K, we can't have a fireplace until we cut a hole in our house. It was time.

In the end, everything worked out. I had measured and remeasured. There had been a fair amount of reading venting manuals, the Jøtul manual, and various CSST manufacturer installation guides. Lots of YouTube.

With the new paneling, the fireplace is exactly what we (mostly K) envisioned…

Before we could fire it up, we had a few more steps:

• Cut that hole through our house
• Move the beast into place
• Do the final connections with the venting and the gas line

There are code requirements for running direct venting through a wall so I made sure to follow all the clearances. It started with cutting out and framing the hole on the inside of our house, then dry-fitting the wall thimble.

In the process, I misjudged the location of a stud. No biggie although I had to do some quick drywall repair to fix the mistake. To mark the location of the cutout on the exterior siding, I drilled a hole in each corner from the inside. Then went outside to measure and mark the actual cut.

Our siding is cement Hardi Board. Turns out that's really tough to cut (pro tip: it's infinitely easier to score and snap, like sheetrock). I tried my trusty multi-tool and even an angle grinder before resorting to some creativity and the ol' score and snap method. 'Just have to be smarter than the siding,' I told myself.

After some effort and a broken piece I'd quickly repair (it's hidden by the exterior vent), we had a hole through our house. Yay!

With the 2x6 framing, sheathing on both sides, and one-inch gap between the exterior sheathing and cement board, the horizontal vent pipe I had ordered turned out to be too short. That meant I had to order another and let our project sit until it showed up on our front porch.

In the meantime, I also had to get crafty with the wall thimble because it wasn't long enough to reach through all those layers of wall. K picked up a piece of aluminum sheet metal which I cut and attached to one half of the thimble before installing the other half of the assembly on the outside.

Once that vent piece showed up, I followed DuraVent's instructions to, well, follow Jøtul's instructions: apply a bead of non-silicone, high-temp sealant to the male flange of each vent piece. K and I (with Sefton's help kicking the pallet out of the way once the fireplace was close to where we wanted it) finessed the Jøtul into place. Then she helped install each piece of venting. The final connection was hooking the horizontal piece to the exterior termination cap.

Then order the final two inspections.

The inspector, Mark, was great. For all the worrying I had felt over had I done all of the steps right, he barely glanced at my work before approving everything: the gas line, the Jøtul's location and its venting. 'Just in time,' he told me with a smile as he turned to leave, snow starting to fall ahead of what turned out to be a 10" dump.

After some shenanigans with the first few times of firing it up, the Jøtul has settled into its place cranking out a subtle yet soothing heat in the corner of our living room. It's definitely worth heeding their warning of opening lots of windows the first few firings as the cast iron burns off the paint and essentially seasons like a fine piece of cookware.

It looks as good as the warmth it exudes feels.

Liquid propane doesn't have the pressure of natural gas so the flames aren't as intense. Yet, since it's all cast iron it gives off a kind of slow heat that fills the room. Never intense like a woodburning fire, silent, it's just there, warming the space. 

The project was a first for us: running a gas line and, well, working with propane. In the end, it wasn't any more difficult than plumbing. Easier, in some ways. We saved well over a grand by doing some research and rolling up our sleeves to do it ourselves. Like every project we've tackled, the satisfaction of both having done it as well as now knowing how it all works is worth way more than what we saved.

Next up… designing the wall of bookshelves to compliment and complete our living room.