New house, old stove, new user!

[Wilhelm911]

Hi everyone,
I recently bought a house (first home), and it came with an Alaska Kodiak wood stove. Never using a wood stove before, and moving in in the heart if winter has made it a quick and interesting learning experience. My house has a heat pump and baseboard heat, but I've been determined to heat with wood. Joining this forum has been great, so much useful information. I have been pretty successful in heating the house thus far, and can't wait to learn more. My stove sits in the basement, and exits into a masonry chimney. It has a Dayton blower on top that vents to a hallway upstairs. Here are a few pictures of my operation, feel free to add suggestions or criticize!

 

[Jason Hall]

Does smoke backup in the house at all with the pipe ran like that? I noticed a orange colored cap in the wall behind the stove, is that another outlet to the chimney? Seems like it would be hard to keep that masonry chimney warm with the burner that far away? Does the 6" pipe have a lot of buildup in it, or do you burn nice dry wood and run her HOT?

 

[Wilhelm911]

The orange door behind the stove is the ash pit for the upstairs fireplace.

I never have any smoke backup, and it seems like it has excellent draft to me, however I'm no expert. I did inspect the 6" outlet and it has some thin flakey buildup that I cleaned out but it didn't seem bad. I was worried about the way it is piped to the chimney since it has all those 90s. I've never seen anything like that before. I was Thinking of moving the stove to the left corner of the basement and then I could just run a 90 out the back and a 45 into the chimney. Would this be in my best interest?

 

[Dune]

Welcome to Hearth.com

The less 90s the better, in fact if you could pipe it would two 45s rather than a 90 and a 45 it would be much more ideal.

Are your basement walls insulated?

 

[Wilhelm911]

No they are not insulated, and are 100% underground.

 

[Dune]

No they are not insulated, and are 100% underground.

Search for threads on insulated and uninsulated concrete walls.

 

[Defiant]

Welcome aboard !!
If it ain't broke don't mess with it.
Seems like a lot of 90's but if it drafts OK with no smoke you are reaping some good heat off that run of single wall pipe.

 

[Oldhippie]

The orange door behind the stove is the ash pit for the upstairs fireplace.

I never have any smoke backup, and it seems like it has excellent draft to me, however I'm no expert. I did inspect the 6" outlet and it has some thin flakey buildup that I cleaned out but it didn't seem bad. I was worried about the way it is piped to the chimney since it has all those 90s. I've never seen anything like that before. I was Thinking of moving the stove to the left corner of the basement and then I could just run a 90 out the back and a 45 into the chimney. Would this be in my best interest?

I like this idea, even if you have to do something more complicated with the feed to upstairs. The stove to chimney pipes needs to be as straight, short and minimal curves as possible. The other one ...meh.. not so much. The heat will still get there.

 

[Wilhelm911]

I think I will move the stove this summer, it couldn't hurt to experiment. I read up on the uninsulated concrete wall threads, looks like I may have a lot of work to do in the future. As for right now I'm going to have to make the best of my heat sucking walls....

Thanks for the input guys!

 

[begreen]

Generally it's recommended to keep single wall connector to 8 ft or less due to heat loss in via the pipe. When the flue gases get below 250F they start condensing on the connector and chimney as creosote. Keep a watchful eye on the creosote accumulation in the chimney and connector pipe.