Wood stove placement and flue pipe idea/help

[atjones44]

Let me start off by saying im new to wood stoves. I've yet to get one. But been having ideas to make my living room more rustic and having an alternative (and no need to rely on electricity) to just my central heat with propane. My house is a berm home, built into the ground. So my walls are all concrete and so are my floors.
I was thinking of taking out some studs and drywall covering the concrete walls and adding a wood stove and tiling behind it with some nice look wood plank looking tile, and removing enough carpet and staining the concrete and have a carpet guy come and do their fancy carpet rolled looking edges around the concrete floor hearth.
Where im getting at is if i wanted to build a little alcove above the wood stove that comes out 14" or so, so i can hang a mantel and hide my flue pipe inside the false alcove framework so it goes up and out the ceiling and roof. would double wall stove pipe be safe enough?
I'll attach some drawing pictures.

Thanks for any help.

-Andrew

 

[begreen]

Welcome Andrew. It's great that you are penciling out this idea first. We recently had someone build this exact setup, posted it here and then we had to unfortunately point out that it was wrong due to a failure to meet the code and stove requirements for alcove clearances.

Most wood stoves in an alcove need to have an 84" ceiling or higher above them. They also may have wider clearance requirements. The stove pipe will have a 6" clearance requirement for double-wall pipe and 18" for single-wall. Lastly, putting a TV above a stove is usually not a great idea. Heat is the enemy of electronics.

But don't give up, there may be another way to skin the cat. A stove could be put in without the mantel. Or another different option would be to install an EPA certified zero-clearance fireplace. That gets built-in and can have a mantle. The chimney pipe then goes all the way down to the top of the unit. There are some nice smaller ZC fireplaces on the market. How large an area would it be heating?

 

[atjones44]

My Berm home is pretty open with kitchen and living room space. its 3 bedrooms and also with a cement safe room built into the ground behind the living room that is actually hidden with a book shelf hung on a steel door. it does have vaulted ceilings in the living room.
I'd say the kitchen and living room area is 1000 sq feet.

 

[begreen]

The bedrooms will get a bit of the heat too as long as their doors are open. If the place well insulated you may get along with a 2 cu ft stove or fireplace. If the walls tend to suck out the heat then I would go larger. This also depends on whether the stove or fireplace would be for 24/7 heating or more like nights and weekends. Regardless of choice any modern wood burner is going to need fully seasoned wood to burn well. That can be hard to get at this time of the year so it would be good to check local supply.

 

[atjones44]

It wont be primary heat, maybe just for those cold weekends and holidays/emergencys or somethin. So if i get one of these zero clearance wood stoves, you're saying i can build it into an alcove like my drawing with the Flue going up inside the alcove using double wall pipe? and still have a mantle and be able to have it be the center point of the living room so my tv can be above it? And yet the wood stove will be producing enough heat to heat the room, dont know how that EPA Zero clearance thing works but okay. Can those type of zero clearance stoves be cooked on with my cast iron pots?

 

[begreen]

An EPA zero-clearance unit is a fireplace with a closed combustion system, not a stove. If you let the fire die down you could cook some baked potatoes or something in a cast iron stew pot, but these fireplaces are flush with no cooktop. You will not find something with a cooktop that can work as proposed due to the heat coming off the stove. If you want a stove the TV and mantel will need to go. That is not such a bad idea. Looking up at a TV is hard on the neck after a while.

Here's what a built-in zc fireplace looks like.

 

[atjones44]

Ok i got ya. That wouldnt look bad at all. Do those type of ZC fireplace kits require an actual chimney to be built or can a flue pipe work ok? Those ZC flush fire places have a similar flue hookup the back similar to a stove? i'll have to do more research

Lastly is there a brand of ZC fireplaces you recommend?

 

[begreen]

They use metal chimney pipe which is insulated. It usually has a clearance requirement of 2" to combustibles. The whole fireplace is in a concealed metal box that gets framed in. Based on your criteria you would probably do fine with a 2-2.5 cu ft fireplace. Some good brands in this size are made by RSF, BIS, Pacific Energy, Kozy, etc.. If you do a search here you will find dozens of recent threads on the topic of ZC fireplaces.

http://www.kozyheat.com/mobile/product/z42
http://www.pacificenergy.net/products/wood/fireplaces/fp25/
http://superiorfireplaces.us.com/products/wct6820

 

[begreen]

This is what one looks like with the chimney connected, before the framing and surface treatment is done.

 

[atjones44]

thanks for all the info!