can i stuff roxul up the chimney?

I have Roxul stuffed around both stoves. Parent's insert and buddy's insert are both stuffed with the Roxul as well. Roxul is in contact with liners for all. My stoves, I have block off plates as well. Inserts, no plate. Never had a problem. As was said earlier, if it gets to 2000 outside the liner, you have biggers isssues and it may be time to get out!

Where can you buy the Roxul Pipe Insulation? My Lowes only seems to carry the regular Roxul products in batts.

The ads show Roxul being torched and not flinching. I don't know how hot a propane torch gets, but not hot enough to do anything to a piece of Roxul (yeah, I did the sanity check). My whole addition is insulated with Roxul. As others have said, by the time you have enough heat to damage Roxul, you're pretty much into bigger issues...

Insulation isn't going to block a draft, you need to seal it with something else.

Not agreeing or disagreeing in general (especially since I have no experience with inserts or liners, etc), but I 'd guess that Roxul would do a better job than, say, fiberglass at at stopping air flow...? The material is very dense / fibers are tightly bound. Beyond that, I'm just a Roxul addict...

I will be purchasing my first-ever insert soon. Being a newb, I don't want to tackle the install myself. A friend recommended an installer, whom I "interviewed" yesterday.

I asked him if he would be insulating with Roxul and putting in a blockoff plate. He said he just uses fiberglass for insulation around the damper and that an insulated liner is not needed. He also said that installing a blockoff plate would be difficult because the damper tubes need to be cut out?

Just wondering if I should be concerned with these responses.

Thanks!

Trooper- Installing an insert is a long-term job. With any luck, you'll get a lifetime of use out of it. So being a job that you're hoping to only do once, it needs to be done right. You're the customer, and you need to be happy with the end result. If contractor #1 isn't willing to do it "right", he needs to know that there are dozens of others that you will be talking to, most of whom will be happy to provide you with the products and services that you desire.

Unless there is a valid reason for not using an insulated liner (i.e. cleanances inside your chimney, it's on an inside wall, etc.), then this might be a legitimate answer. Even if on an interior wall, it's still not a bad idea to go with an insulated liner anyways. It cannot hurt, and will only help to ensure that your liner remains warm enough to minimize creosote buildup, which lowers your chances of a potential chimney fire. For a few hundred bucks extra, why not give yourself the extra piece of mind?

Regarding a blockoff plate, your contractor's answer scares me... almost as if he has never seen one before. The blockoff plate is simple to create using plain sheetmetal and tin snips, and I have no idea what he is referring to regarding interference with your "damper tubes". A hole is cut in the middle of the blockoff plate for your liner to pass through. You want the radiant heat from your insert to stay in your house and not escape through the chimney. The blockoff plate will help to ensure that the majority of radiant heat stays in your house. In my mind, this is a fundamental requirement of any insert installation.

As for using fiberglass insulation vs Roxul, this is a no-brainer. In the unfortunate event that you do have a chimney fire, the Roxul holds up to ~2,100 degrees and will most likely not ignite. That wouldn't be the case for the fiberglass stuff, which at that point, only worsens your situation. Why not use the product that is best suited for the application? The cost difference is minimal ($40 will get you more than enough Roxul to do the job). Roxul is the perfect choice for this application. I would not use fiberglass.

So how did the interview go? In my mind, I think he gets a D-. I would be contacting other options if I were you.

Thanks DKranger22. I thought I should be concerned, but just wanted to bounce it off the experts here. My neighbor raved about the guy, but perhaps my neighbor didn't ask the questions that I did. I find that consuming info from this forum makes one smarter than the average bear.

Trooper - My pleasure. I'm by no means an expert (I'm getting my first insert installed on Saturday), but I think the majority of folks here would agree with my sentiments.

I had a very similiar experience to you in searching for a contractor to do my install. Even though my chimney is on an interior wall, no one seemed to think that insulating the liner was important, even for exterior wall applications. I live in Cleveland, OH, so we can get some pretty cold, winter days, so i found this troubling.

I couldn't help but feel that I was running into "lazy" contractors that didn't want to take the extra steps to do the job right. They probably figured that I would be a one-time, uniformed customer who wouldn't know the difference between a hatchet job and a good install. I found that the more questions I would ask them, the more defensive the contractor would get. Like, "Oh no, this guy knows what he is talking about...".

Perhaps your neighbor doesn't know the right questions to ask. When he saw that beautiful, new fireplace blazing away, that was all that mattered to him, so he was happy. Either way, you're doing the right thing by arming yourself with information. Don't feel bad by pushing back on the installer and asking him to do the job the way you want it done. If you do, you'll second guess yourself for the next 20 years. Even if the insert were to run "good" as quoted, you might never know it's full potential, as the things in question could very easily make a "good" insert perform "great".

In my mind, liner insulation and a block-off plate packed with Roxul above it are a must for any insert.

Thanks again and completely agree on the liner insulation, block-off plate and Roxul.
Best of luck with your install tomorrow, and pictures would be appreciated!

The pipe insulation is only available at "industrial supply" outlets. In my case, no one in my city can get it, but I can get it in 4or5 days from a supplier called Steeles in a city about 45 minutes away.

I think Steeles Industrial is in the States as well.