When I was growing up, we had a home in the mountains near a lake. We as a family fished for trout many warm days cooking them over an open fire pit. We had a tranquil fireplace surrounded by river rock where the dog lazed about during the winter. Then one day, Dad got the bright idea to replace the wood burning stove—not the fireplace box. He also wanted to add a moss rock wall behind the stove. What a labor- and time-intensive job that was! Replacing pipe, concreting in the moss rocks, and me—I carried Dad tools and things not too heavy for a young boy. Dad told me that the wall had to have asbestos board for safety and a hearth of stone so that nothing was combustible. All of this had to be done so many inches from the wall to conform to fire codes.
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