I want to put up a shelf on a wall that is close to a wood air tight heater. The temperture difference is from 20 to 30 degrees, with a max of about 80 degrees. I was going to use solid oak, but I am worried about the expansion and contraction of the wood. Can Oak plywood be used or is Poplar better? Also should I be concerned about what type of finish I put on it?
Generally, the expansion and contraction of wood is a function of humidity (and therefore moisture content in the wood) rather than temperature. Having said that, warming things up will drop the relative humidity and probably dry out the wood more.
The hardwoods all have different amounts of expansion in the face of differnt moisture contents. Plywood would be far more stable. I doubt it will matter much though. Just design things correctly to allow for wood movement and you should be fine no matter what you use.
I don't think any finish would have a problem standing up to 80 degrees indoors.
brian
Petrified.
Max
You are missing the point; the temperature CAN get much higher than normal. For instance, my chimney, about 3 feet up from the stove, is usually about
250 degrees. Once I foolishly loaded the stove up with kiln dried scraps and it went up to 500 degrees. I expect a chimney fire would take it even higher.
I assume you are 36" away from the stove and flue as required by code.
Any wood and finish should do. 80 degrees is not very hot when you consider that people live in parts of the country that routinely get to 90 or 100 degrees for months at a time. And they have wood in their homes.
You're missing the point Toller. He is not seeing 250 degree temperatures around his chimney. If he were, he could not stand to even be in the area. He has taken readings and the highest he has seen is 80 degrees. It does not matter what the flue temperature is - that is not what is been seen radiated out. Yes - a chimney fire would result in higher temperatures. So what? We don't build homes in anticipation of chimney fires, we operate to prevent chimney fires. He did not ask if he could put a shelf 2" from his stack, he asked about the risk of wood movement.
---clip--- The temperture difference is from 20 to 30 degrees, with a max of about 80 degrees.
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