3-2-10, a good place to start.

I have been running a chimney that violates 3-2-10 for a pretty long time. I got a way with it for 5 months less than a pretty long time.

I think overall the 'rule of thumb' is overkill', but if you are having draft issues, even intermittent ones, it is a good place to start and proceed from.

Here is my old ZC fireplace, a heatilator:



Notice this was back in the day of CRT type televisions, and I have a plastic curtain already attached to the ceiling and a scrap of carpet padding on the floor for upcoming demolition. I have also retired the 3/8" chuck drill since this picture was taken...

And here, you may judge by the ankle - happy wife, happy life - after I removed the ZC and put in an EPA cert non cat - in 2013.



Here is a chimney shot of the first burn in the EPA cert non cat before I had to go do man stuff with the wife in front of the stove....



According to my records this was 11-10-2013.

I had a smoke intrusion on the stove room in March 2018., five years later. It was ugly. You know that thing about "what would you grab on your way out if your house was on fire?" kind of stuff?

I can, unfortunately, answer that question. I took my wife, the darn cat, my best Dunhill pipe (a 1967 straight billiard) , my best handgun( a Ruger with some special sauce(s)), and went out at +20dF with no gloves for my hands.

After the ordeal, when my birches leafed out, I had this from the other side of the house:



I pruned that sucker back to flat dirt. I put my anger and frustration into digging the stump out the way I learned in archaeology class, with a trowel and a hatchet. All better now.

Along the way, I pinned the stump to see where it was when the ZC came out and the new chimney went in:



After terminal pruning of the offending Betula sp I have this view from the south looking north, see post one above:




I should be fine on 3-2-10 now. My local ordinances require 1 tree per bedroom, I have 5 bedrooms and 11 trees with trunk diameter > 1 inch. If I need to terminal prune a couple more, they are going down like a, well, going down like a thing christian men aren't supposed to know about.

Thank you Jan. My hypothesis is 3-2-10 is overkill, but if an operator is having draft issues they need to comply with 3-2-10 before they worry about anything else.

I am of course a schlumpfy idiot who should not be allowed in public without a front wheeled walker, two assistants, a standby wheelchair, a manometer for wind speed and a barometer. And a wet bulb thermometer to go with my Depends.

No one has been able to come up with a "better" explanation for the smoke intrusion I experienced.

All the stove/ chimney hardware checked out just fine.
No clumps blocking gas flow in the flue.
My fuel was superb.

There was just nothing else at which to point a finger.

So I dropped the tree.

If I get another smoke intrusion while the chimney does meet 3-2-10, then I will have a mystery on my hands.

Good eyes guys. Lemme dig a little. In 2013 we stopped at 3-2-10 when the new chimney went in. I think my total stack height once the Ashford 30 was under the same pipe, collar to cap, came in at 13 feet, 6 inches.

We added two feet of pipe a year after the A30 went in to take total pipe length up to 15 feet 6 inches.

I think I have a pic of a guy on the roof next to the 2013 new install.

The tree was within ten horizontal feet of the chimney pipe in 2013 and got taller.

Ludlow said:

My Dad had an insert with flex liner setup that burned like a champ 99.9% of the time. When the barometric pressure was goofy or for whatever reason we dont really know, it would downdraft and fill the house with smoke. I have seen smoke come out of chimneys and plunge directly to the ground. I really dont think the tree was the reason. JIMO. My gut says not enough stack height for an EPA stove. My stove manual says 15 feet minimum from collar. For the open fireplace it was sufficient.

Click to expand...

Well, I may never know.

Ambient temp that night was about +20dF, so i would ordinarily expect what detached exhaust plume I have to be working upward in a sort of non chalant manner. At -20 dF outdoor ambient and colder i would have an attached plume, but it would be moving out, headed straight up pretty smart like in calm winds.

My point with this thread is the 3-2-10 violation was the only actionable finding after the stove was cold and the snow was off the roof to get up there. So I acted.

I too met a guy who gets smoke intrusions with great regularity. Every couple weeks he said. It's just not on my list of things up with which to put.

I think I have a pic of the install guys for the chimney on the roof from back in 2013. The short version is i will try to look for it this weekend. My roof piercing is near, but to one side of my ridge pole. Once the radiation shield was in the rafters with a 3 foot pipe on that, they had to add one additional foot of pipe to get the 2-10 part relative to my ridgepole.

Then a couple years later I added two feet (with my visa card) to make the 15 feet minimum for the new cat stove.