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fossil

Accidental Moderator
Hearth Supporter
Sep 30, 2007
10,566
Bend, OR
Howdy - Recently moved from Northern Virginia to Bend Oregon, and love it. I'm installing a small wood stove in my workshop. It'll sit on a masonry hearth built on a concrete slab, and is a pedestal model stove, so there are no issues with floor clearance or protection. The wall behind is combustible. We'll build a 3 1/2" thick brick heat shield wall spaced out 1" from the combustible wall, providing for air inlets in the bottm, and the stove has an integral rear heat shield with 1 1/4" air gap from the rear wall of the stove (which is lined with firebrick), so I figure I can safely position this stove such that the back wall of the stove is about 9" from the combustible wall...with two air gaps, a heat shield, and 3 1/2" of masonry separating the two. This would put the centerline of the stovepipe about 12" from the combustible wall as far up as the brick wall and air gap extend. At that point, it needs to offset 6" to move it farther from the wall and to align it with the already installed stainless duravent chimney and 6" snap-lock adapter, which are 18" from the wall to centerline. If I use two fixed 45-degree elbows snapped directly together, will this give me a 6" offset? Also, I'm not sure whether or not I'll need a stove collar adapter. The stove has a collar on it, of about 3/16" wall thickness, and 6" inside diameter. Next time, I'll tackle all the questions I have about relocating a nice old existing LoPi stove in the living room. Thanks!
 
Your plans sound more than fine - that stove is probably listed (is there a label) for close clearance as-is, so you may be doing the wall mostly for show and for the pipe.

As to the exact offset, there is a difference between the length of various 45's, and I don't think that two put together will offset 6" total - the thing to do it to try it and then if need be you have to add a small piece of pipe between them.

As to the stove collar, this also depends on a couple things. Some pipe uses crimped ends - others (heat-fab, dura) may use flanged ends. Measure the ID of the flue collar on the stove.....then you can either put a crimped end in, or get a piece crimped if need be. It also may be that the flue collar is oversize and allows straight pipe to go in. Sorry I can't provide a better answer - much of this stuff is "try it in the field" action.
 
Uhm... Dumb question, but isn't Oregon one of the states with restrictions about installing older Pre-Epa stoves? Is this something Fossil is going to need to worry about?

Gooserider
 
Gooserider said:
Uhm... Dumb question, but isn't Oregon one of the states with restrictions about installing older Pre-Epa stoves? Is this something Fossil is going to need to worry about?

Gooserider

You are right goose Oregon has one of the strictest codes in USA well Wash just passed even more stringent GPH requirements But no stove can be installed unless it meets Oregon requirements. In fact no stove can be sold if it is noat an EPA Phase II and that I believe includes private sales When a home is sold the existing stoves are inspected and if not EPA certified they are removed and Certified that they went to a scrap yard to be destroyed.

As s for installing in a shop ,that presents other dangers airborne Sawdust paint fumes possibly gasoline. If the shop is part garage most additional issues

As far as the Nfpa is concerned you may reduce clearances up to 12" but still need 18" to combustibles of single wall vent pipe.

These are guestions you should be asking your building Inspector, after all he is the one that will be inspecting it and signing it off
 
The workshop is in a new structure we had built earlier this year. The chimney for the future woodstove installation was professionally installed and inspected. The little stove I'm putting in there is brand new, listed, and certified. As for being careful how I use it...retired from a 30+ year career as a Navy engineer, you can rest assured I'm a safety-conscious individual, particularly when it comes to fire.

The other stove I want to move in the existing house is a different situation. It's approaching 30 years old, so obviously neither listed nor certified. When we bought the home, the seller was required to disclose this to us for our information, but there was no requirement to remove or replace the stove. So fgar as I can tell from the Oregon and Deschutes County websites, existing installations are grandfathered to the extent that they can continue in use. Strictly speaking, the way the law reads, I can use this stove until I "remove it from the house". Then it would be illegal for me to sell or otherwise transfer it, or do anything with it other than get it properly disposed of.

I don't want to "remove it from the house", I want to move it from one side of the Living Room to the other. We leveled off what used to be an Inglenook "conversation pit" in front of an original masonry fireplace, we're decommissioning that old fireplace and building the new hearth to accept the wood stove atop the new floor in front of the existing massive masonry structure. I'd like to run the stove pipe as far up as possible in the room (vaulted ceiling, chimney masonry exposed all the way up), then bore through the masonry into the flue and exhaust the wood stove out the last few feet of the existing masonry chimney.

If it turns out that I have to buy a new stove, sobeit, it'd be fun to go stove shopping anyway...but whatever stove it turns out to be, I know where I want it in the room.

I appreciate the comments, food for thought, and sharing of your experience.
 
Hi Fossil and welcome to hearth.com.

There may be benefits to replacing the old smoke dragon in the living room beyond meeting the "spirit" of Oregon's new tougher restrictions. Newer stoves burn much more efficiently and will reduce your wood consumption, while throwing as much or more heat than the old stove. Less wood to acquire and process is a definite benefit in my mind.

Most new stoves will also offer you lower clearance requirements than the old unlisted version, which must really keep its distance from anything combustible. Not to mention that many new stoves look better and give you a nice view of the fire.

Just some food for thought on the old vs new stove.
 
All excellent points, and we just may decide to replace the stove with a new one. With the impending onset of winter, we're not about to start disconnecting and moving this stove anytime soon anyway. We'll get the hearth built over the next couple of weeks, but we'll use this stove right where it is until spring, so we've got plenty of time to think about it. Of course, that opens up a whole new world of possibilities in choosing a new stove...much to learn! The little workshop stove is an overall much more straightforward installation, and I'm hoping to fire it up by the end of the month. This is a terrific forum.
 
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but a few cautions I felt necessary to warn about. You seem to have considered most of they u already which is good.

Good execution comes from advanced planning

welcome to the hearth
 
IIRC what I've read, the Oregon rules don't allow relocation of unlisted / pre-EPA stoves. Even moving the stove w/in the same house counts as a "new installation" - a fact that definitely would get me upset, given my feelings about gov't interventions in general but...

I would also suggest getting a new stove quite aside from the legal issues of moving the smoke dragon-

1. A listed stove will probably have lower clearance requirements, meaning less intrusion into your living space

2. A listed stove will burn less wood for the same amount of heat

3. A listed stove will be less effected by the burning restriction rules that I understand Oregon has.

4. New stoves tend to have more visible fires for watching through the stove windows.

Gooserider
 
Elkimmeg, I couldn't agree more. I've had just one wood stove before, in a weekend place we had on the Shenandoah River in Virginia, so I'm not exactly an old pro. I've done my homework to learn a lot about wood stove safety, proper installation, and proper use...still learning. Here in Oregon, we have an electric forced air furnace installed, but other than to test it and make sure it works, I haven't used it and hope not to, so the wood stove is going to be our primary. We do use the fan to circulate air, but not the dreaded electric heating coils ($$$!). We need a couple of ceiling fans, as the vaulted ceilings really collect an awful lot of good warm air, and there are some other changes we need to make to the place as well, but with help like is available from all of you on this forum, I'm confident we'll get it all figured out. Thanks, I appreciate you responding.
 
Thanks, Gooserider...you folks are pushing me right over the edge on relocating this old LoPi. Maybe it's time to start teaching me about the cat/non-cat issues and everything else involved in the selection of an appropriate stove, and next spring we'll do the deed the right way.
 
If that Lopi was sold and installed in Oregon between 1985 and 1989 it had to be DEQ certified to essentially what became the EPA certification standards in 1990. After 1990 to be sold there it had to be EPA certified.

That stove would have to over 22 years old to bear the "smoke dragon" appellation.
 
BrotherBart, the stove is a LoPi M520...really a pretty nice stove, in my limited experience (it heats the house, anyway). The house was built in 1979, and I have no evidence that would lead me to believe this stove was anything other than an original installation during the construction of the home. The stove installation is quite obviously professionally done, down to the all-welded very heavy custom stovepipe. The only sticker of any kind I can find anywhere on it is the LoPi sticker on the back of the heat shield, showing model & serial #'s, and then most all the verbiage about clearances and whatever was long ago covered with high-temp paint. I think my old LoPi might well have earned the distinction of being dubbed a "Smoke Dragon". I think that if I were to apply for a permit to relocate this stove, I'd get slapped hard.
 
fossil said:
BrotherBart, the stove is a LoPi M520...really a pretty nice stove, in my limited experience (it heats the house, anyway). The house was built in 1979, and I have no evidence that would lead me to believe this stove was anything other than an original installation during the construction of the home. The stove installation is quite obviously professionally done, down to the all-welded very heavy custom stovepipe. The only sticker of any kind I can find anywhere on it is the LoPi sticker on the back of the heat shield, showing model & serial #'s, and then most all the verbiage about clearances and whatever was long ago covered with high-temp paint. I think my old LoPi might well have earned the distinction of being dubbed a "Smoke Dragon". I think that if I were to apply for a permit to relocate this stove, I'd get slapped hard.

I think the version of that stove is currently the Lopi Liberty. It would be interesting if during your stove shopping you took a look at the new Liberty and noted the differences. I bet there aren't many.
 
The Liberty looks like the newer cousin to my M-520. The firebox is about 10% larger, and they've obviously done some air flow engineering, as my old stove has an 8" flue, while the Liberty is 6". The footprint's a bit larger, but that's not a problem for the hearth we're building, and the capacity is good for the house (2400 sq. ft.). I like the fact that it's apparently a pretty clean burning stove for a non-cat. Thanks for the tip, that's the first stove on our shopping list...plenty of time, though.
 
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