8" pipe at roof, 6" at stove. Does this sound safe?

[zionadams]

Our house was remodeled last year and a fireplace installer did the job, put in a new 8" ceiling box and pipe for the existing stove to vent. Now, we're switching to a stove that takes 6" pipe and using a 'coupler' or 'reducer' to make the connection. Right now, the plan is to reduce the diameter of the pipe mid-way, at the 90-elbow. The entire length of pipe is about 6ft 6inches, give or take a few inches. We'd have 3ft of 8" coming out of the ceiling, 2 elbows, and 6" for the remaining 3-4ft to the stove. Also, my husband is ordering a damper for the 6" pipe. We're only using the elbows for clearance, not going through any walls or floors. It's aclear shot with minimum of 24" space. We'll be using the stove all winter long as our primary heat source.

As much as this should be a no-brainer it truly is not and I need your help...if we mess up I'm afraid we'll be creating a safety hazard. The hope would be that it would create a stronger vacuum in the pipe and result in more heat retention but is that safe in a pipe? Our new stove is similar to a Baker (can't find info on the manu) and has a bypass-damper on it.

I need your thoughts...is this a good plan?

We're going to finally have the remaining stove pipe we need tomorrow, which is good since it was in the 40's here last night! Part of me thinks I need to just order more 6".

Thanks for answering!

 

[gweldgen]

I have a similar setup. 6 inch stove to an 8 inch steel chimney. I opted for all 6 inch black pipe including 2 - 45's needed to align the stove to chimney. I tried a couple of different reducers for the ceiling connection and finally found one that was a welded piece and the joint between the 2 sizes has a slight taper downward so nothing will catch on it. Some of the size adapters are stepped and if bits of soot fall down they could build up on the ledge. Hope this helps but it sounds like you may already have the pipe coming.

 

[zionadams]

It does help and I'm grateful for your response!

We have one section of pipe coming but considered ordering 1 or 2 more. Given everything I think we'll prob wait and give this a run. FYI there's a bunch of 6" pipe for sale on here, in the classifieds. Sounds like a good deal...if I'd seen that before ordering from Ace Hardware (who is dirt cheap on pipe by the way) we'd have the stuff in the classified.

As for the soot buildup, the reducer we have is a cone shaped piece. We'll be attempting to use the old 8" elbows. They also collect soot and we make a practice of just dismantling the pipe yearly and completely cleaning them out. When you live in a log cabin it's better to be safe than sorry.