Free Standing Shelving

how do we insulate the bookshelves from our fire place?

We have a small free standing slow combustion stove that takes up one wall of our lounge room. Although I love the fire in the winter, I feel its a complete waste of space around it and would like to build floor to ceiling bookshelves either side of it. But my other half is sceptical because of the heat factor, not only to the shelving materials but also the books themselves. Especially near the top of the chimney. There would be around half a metre space either side of the chimney and the shelving. Would it really get that hot? Is there a way to insulate the shelves against the heat? Or is the risk of damage too high?

Public Comments

1. I am assuming this is a wood burning stove. In that case you must maintain 24 inches on the sides of the stove and 18 inches around the pipe from combustible materials i.e. wooden bookshelves. If you really wanted to you could Put some metal lining around the book shelves with a one inch air space between them to reduce clearance 33%
2. I'm planning to do the same thing, basically what i'm going to do is set up a fibre cement barrier between the fire and the shelving . So just a sheet of fibro packed out from the shelf so there's an airspace behind it tht runs up the side of the shelving so the radiant heat doesn't fall on the timber. But still, even with that I'm not going to get closer than about a metre. Wood gets super hot if it's near a fire. We had to remove some shelves in house because they would basically burn you if you touched them once the fire had been going for a while. Whatever you do you just need to create a 'shadow' with some non-combustible material to mask the timber from the radiant heat- even if it's just to stop the joinery getting damaged by the extreme expansion and contraction if you're heating and cooling it all the time.
3. I'm no fire expert but I'm pretty sure it would take a temperature of around 500 °C to ignite anything like timber without a naked flame and I'm guessing you and the sceptical other half would be long dead by then! To prove you're right to the sceptic sticky tape a piece of paper 300mm away from the hotest section of chimney and see what happens.