Another clay tile flue thread.

[Darbycrash]

Greetings!

I recently bought a house that uses propane as its main heat source. This is a shock to me, since I am used to heating a 2000 sqft space with a Harmon wood stove year round with no issues. We used 10% of our 500 gallon tank in just over 1 week!

Saying that, I am going to purchase a Drolet Tundra pretty soon and originally planned on installing this in the basement and plugging into an existing chimney. The chimney has a cinderblock body and a 6.5x10.5 inch clay tile liner (ID) and it looks fairly new. The tiles look good from what I can tell, very clean and no cracks that I can see. There is a little misalignment but not anything major. I was going to try and run into this chimney the way it is for the rest of this heating season (I'm in Michigan, 3 months left or so) and see how things went before buying the liner. If I can get by without lining the chimney, that would be great since I don't know that I can cram a 6" SS liner down that chimney anyways.

Anyways my questions are: Will the Drolet be alright running in a flue with roughly 60-70 inches of effective flue area? Is anyone out there doing this?

Is this against any sort of code, or will my insurance frown upon it? The insurance company did not care much that I heated my old home with a wood stove.

I plan on taking many pictures of the install as well as a review video so stay posted.

Additional info:
House size is a 1400 sqft colonial 2 story built in 1980, chimney is exterior with only 1 side attached to the house. The chimney seems to be around 10 years old or so and looks very lightly used. I can see where they had tapped into it from the patched holes in the poured basement walls. Also looking down into the chimney it looks like they pushed the stove pipe into the chimney and mortared over it. Not sure why they quit using this, however there was a HotBlast furnace in the pole barn when I moved in (they took it with them)


Thanks Guys
-JH

 

[zig]

You'll may have creosote issues around the top of the chimney where the gasses will be the coolest. Burn as dry a wood as you can and keep an eye on it; you know what to look for. I'm not sure how to get a 6" liner in there unless it's ovalized. This isn't the same place the LP vents to is it?

 

[Darbycrash]

You'll may have creosote issues around the top of the chimney where the gasses will be the coolest. Burn as dry a wood as you can and keep an eye on it; you know what to look for. I'm not sure how to get a 6" liner in there unless it's ovalized. This isn't the same place the LP vents to is it?

Nope, the LP has it's own flue up the center of the building.

Most of the wood I will be burning for the rest of the year is 2 year ash, which is around 15% or less on some splits. (this is the reading on a fresh split piece)

 

[begreen]

Going to move this to the boiler room for better advice on how to best run the Tundra to keep creosote buildup manageable.

 

[laynes69]

I don't see as much as a creosote issue as a condensation issue. However, a creosote issue could occur due to a weak draft, which affects burn. The Tundras don't put out alot of heat to the chimney. A chimney that size won't heat, and the gasses will cool and slow down. This causes alot of liquid and poor draft.

 

[maple1]

I don't see as much as a creosote issue as a condensation issue. However, a creosote issue could occur due to a weak draft, which affects burn. The Tundras don't put out alot of heat to the chimney. A chimney that size won't heat, and the gasses will cool and slow down. This causes alot of liquid and poor draft.

Your lp usage doesn't sound too out of hand. Our friends went thru 400 gallons (a full 500 gallon tank) in 3 weeks. I don't know how much propane is there, but here it was around a $1.30 a gallon. That would cost about $52.00 a month at the rate your using.

Wouldn't that be more like $65 a week?

 

[laynes69]

Wouldn't that be more like $65 a week?

Yeah your right... I just woke up, lol. That makes more sense. I took it out.

 

[Smoked]

Ask Drolet about 5.5 liner. If you run it without and it creates a glaze in there, then you have the drama of needing to clean that before you line it. I would line it!

 

[brenndatomu]

You can't anymore than try it as is. But I will give it about 99.9% odds that it won't work well. As others mentioned, the chimney will tend to "stall" once the furnace damper closes, because there will not be enough "waste" heat to keep it going. Remember, the chimney is the engine that makes the firebox work.
And when the chimneys stalls, the creosote issues start...then you are headed toward problems. I'd plan on lining it...but as I
said, you could try it.

there was a HotBlast furnace in the pole barn when I moved in (they took it with them)

Boy did they do you a favor!

 

[joes169]

There's two size versions of clay flues, modular (newer style) and full (older style). Both are made to this day, but the full's are getting harder to find in some areas. It sounds like you have a modular 8x12 flue, ~7 5/8" x 11 5/8" outside, compared to the "full" which is closer to 8 3/4" x 12 3/4" oustide.

I have the larger, full, sized flue, and it was relatively straight with little obstruction, other than some mortar oozing in. I simply used straight 4' sections of stainless liner w/o any issue in my scenario. Judging by how low the chimney temps are with my Caddy, I would not want to use an existing clay liner, and wouldn't expect anything but frustration from it, especially considering it's on an exterior wall.

One other thing to keep in mind is this: It's only been 15 years or so since the correct refractory mortar has been widely used in masonry flues. Often, either plain mortar was used for convenince, and acridic smoke will eat it apart. Or, air-set refractory was often used as well, which turns out is water soluable, which is why the joints tend to "wash out" through time. In short, I wouldn't want to vent anything critical into a masonry flue that I didn't know for certain hw it was built.

On edit, I'd consider buying a cheap piece of 6" rounf galvi duct from a big box store and attempt to send it down the chimney to see if there's even a chance of fitting a straight liner down before making any hard decisions........

 

[laynes69]

Depending on the liner if there's no mortar sticking out, a rigid liner could easily fit. We have a tall chimney, so a rigid 5.5" liner fit and works well.