Rocks on the fire place

[flatwater]

I'm planning on putting an old cast iron wood stove in my cabin. It's not an air tight one but my Idea was to put rocks around and on top of to act as heat storage and release after the fire goes out. It would be like a small version of the European stove only the rocks would be loose and stacked. Any one have any success with this or something similar?
Flatwater

[MadTripper]

A friend of mine designed a stove with a 55gal. drum and surrounded it with rocks. He also has a stack thermostat and forced air system integrated. He says it works wonderful. Dense rock makes a great heatsink as well as sand and cement blocks (not cinder blocks for those unaware). You mention that the stove isn't sealed up? I'm thinking you may want to take care of that before you get to carried away with burying it behind a bunch of stone. If not to control carbon monoxide, you certainly want to control every bit of oxygen that enters the stove.

Tripper

[annabella1]

also make sure the rocks don't have any water content in them or they may explode when they get heated.

[PK.]

Check around with local countertop guys and get soapstone scraps. Soapstone makes for very good heat sinks.