Summer kitchen cook stove

In the fall of 2008, we purchased a Smederevac wood cook stove to use in a summer kitchen.

The summer kitchen was only in the plans at that time, not a reality.

We didn’t know anything about this stove at the time except that it is made in Serbia, having been made since the 1920s (or so we read). It’s fairly light weight with a small fire box. It’s designed for cooking, not heating.

The stove has been sitting on our back porch patiently waiting to be set up – we’ve never used it. As the weather continues to warm up here, it’s gotten kind of warm inside the house when we’re cooking on the Baker’s Choice cook stove. So, that has provided some impetus to actually get the smaller stove hooked up. I’ve had stove pipe sections that I bought some time ago ready, and I purchased a couple more this week.

So, this afternoon, I moved some things on the back porch, including the stove. I installed the stove pipe adapter (it has a small outlet, not 6 inch). Because the solar panels are installed on the porch roof, I wanted to route the chimney behind and above them. Originally, we were going to install the stove with the stove pipe running in front of where the panels are now installed. I guess I would have had to move it if it had already been installed.

I cut a hole in the metal roof and ran the 6 inch stove pipe straight up from the stove. Ideally, I would’ve used double-walled insulated chimney pipe, but for this installation I didn’t want to spend the money for that. So, it’s just single wall pipe all the way. There is 14 feet of stove pipe so that the top is above the solar panels.

Of course, once I had the stove set up and the chimney installed, I had to try it out. So, I built a small fire to see how it would work. I set a tea pot on the top to test the temperature of the cook top. It didn’t take long for it to start blowing steam and whistling. It looks like the stove is going to work.

I want to enclose the porch a bit to keep out some of the wind and the rain that blows in. It will have several screened windows for ventilation. We also have a sink with a cabinet that I’ll install, and I’ll put in a couple shelves with counters. Then, we’ll have a fully functional summer kitchen. That will be a good thing since we don’t want to heat the house up during the summer and using the electric cook stove is no longer a viable option.