Big stove for exposed stovepipe vs existing chimney

[Tahoe]

Hello,
I'm new here and have gotten quite a bit of information from this forum so far. Thank you!

We are in the process of buying a new wood stove and it seems like the first branch-point in the decision making process is if it is going to be top or back vented.

We've moved into a new 3000' house, good insulation, lots of cold windows. The power goes out once or twice a winter, usually during big storms. Night time temps are moderate, usually in the teens, rarely dropping to single digits. The house was built in 1976 with a wood fireplace, which was converted over to a decorative gas insert before we bought it, which has been vented through the fireplace and straight out the back of the firebox with a simpson B-vent. The new wood stove is going to sit right in front of where the gas fireplace is now (I'll fill in the void with a heat-absorbing/radiating stone/tile wall). It seems that I should be able to re-sleeve the chimney and run a back-venting stove sitting in front of the hearth. Alternatively, I can just run exposed black stovepipe inside the room, up and out the roof directly above the stove. It'll require a new hole in the roof, but that's okay. I think the height of the rear-vent flue will be fine for most of the stoves I'm looking at in relation to the currently existing fireplace/chimney. The stove is going to sit in the same spot with either option.

The rear vent will require a horizontal run of however many inches are required before making a 90deg turn up the chimney. The top vent will just be a vertical straight shot out the roof (no attic, etc).

Are there advantages/disadvantages to either setup? I can imagine the 90 deg turn could have some impact on the flow of smoke? We do get inversions here. In our previous house, we had an xtrordinaire (sp?) wood insert that I had to warm the flue prior to lighting to start a good draft. I don't know how I'd do that if there was a long horizontal run. Also, would the exposed stove pipe give off its own heat to any meaningful degree? Also, is there less risk of fire with an exposed stove pipe vs. sleeving and old chimney? Are there any other considerations I should be aware of? Does this just come down to aesthetics?

Lastly, just to keep things succinct, we don't want a gas stove or a fireplace insert.

Thanks everyone for your help. I've got more questions about specific stoves, but I'll make a separate post for that.

 

[Tahoe]

Hello,

This is my second post. The first one was about chimneys and now I'm hoping to learn about particular stoves.

Here's a recap of our house/heating needs: We live in Lake Tahoe, 6,800' elevation. Power goes out 1-2 times per winter with the big storms. We just moved into a new house after having our 3rd son and now have a 3000 SF house. The lower level is mostly open with 3/4 of the downstairs having 8' ceilings and 1/4 having a tall cathedral type ceiling (30'?). The house was built in 1976 with a recent addition prior to our buying it. The insulation seems good and its not too drafty, but there are a ton of chilly windows. It was built with a wood fireplace that the previous owner converted to a decorative gas fireplace. The gas fireplace is vented directly out of the back of the old fireplace. The fireplace is located in the part of the room with the high ceiling. This is where the wood stove will go. We also have 2 furnaces. One is a NG munchkin boiler serving the hydronic in-floor heat on the ground floor and the other is a standard NG furnace blowing forced air into the bedrooms on the second floor. I don't expect the stove to heat the bedrooms. Sorry for the excessive detail.

We've decided on replacing the gas fireplace with a wood stove (a mix of redundancy, aesthetics, nostalgia, and an abundance of wood). I'd like a freestanding stove so we won't have to rely on a blower when the power is out like we did with our old insert. It didn't put out much heat without the fan going. That said, once it was cranking, you couldn't damp it enough or turn the fan off and it would sweat us out of the room.

The stoves I'm looking at are:

Woodstock progress hybrid (Looks nice, good BTUs, shorter burns than the blaze king)
Blaze king ashford 30 or maybe even the king 40 (super long burn times but less BTUs?)
Hearthstone mansfeild or equinox 8000 (looks very nice, but slow to warm up?)

I'm definitely open to other suggestions as well.

Thanks for your help!
- Adam

 

[begreen]

If the chimney is serviceable with an insulated liner, that would be the cleanest look for installation. The stove would rear-vent into a tee attached to the liner. The first thing to check is the lintel height to see what stove options clear under it.

The stove will need sufficient draft for this. How tall is the chimney?

 

[Highbeam]

Don’t be fooled by btu ratings. They are not real unless you are looking at the newest 2020 approved stoves and even then you need to only compare the btu numbers from stoves tested using the the same fuel type be it crib wood or cord wood.

So instead look at firebox size and to a lesser extent efficiency.

 

[begreen]

Before looking, figure out the install parameters. A rear vent stove venting into the fireplace (if possible) is going to look much better than a stove sitting in front of the fireplace with a separate chimney. Or was the intent to locate the stove elsewhere in the house if doing a straight-up install? The vaulted ceiling could be a bit of a problem with no power. Heat is going to pocket at the peak. It needs something to circulate the air like ceiling fans.

Can you post a sketch of the floorplan? Indicate fireplace location & where the vaulted ceiling is.

 

[mark cline]

My Mansfield may take an additional 30 min to come up to temp but it takes over 2 hrs to come down in temp.

 

[jatoxico]

Can you throw a pic up? Is the existing chimney an exterior or interior? If exterior there prob would be a performance advantage to running new stove pipe.

 

[Blue Heron Hideaway]

The Equinox would be good Unless you want a cat stove. you could do a ceiling fan on the vaulted ceiling if it doesn't already and then something to run it when the power goes out

 

[webby3650]

Hearthstone mansfeild or equinox 8000 (looks very nice, but slow to warm up?)

Slow to warm up and slow to release heat. Soapstone makes a great insulator, releasing slow “soft” heat, while sending the balance of the heat up the flue. Since they added the cat it might be better, Woodstock stoves are much better at delivering heat in my experience, likely because of the cat combustion system.
Ive probably had a dozen or so different stoves over the years, the Mansfield was the only stove that my wife wanted gone. We would come home from work and spend the entire evening trying to bring the house temp back up, any “heat life” in the stone was worthless in my home, I needed some real heat and it didn’t perform. Heck, we had much smaller stoves that did the job well, that were a fraction of the cost.

 

[Blue Heron Hideaway]

Good to know about soapstone.

 

[webby3650]

I’ll also add that I rarely ever see a Hearthstone stove that isn’t cracked. We sell and service a lot of Hearthstones, I end up cleaning many of the ones we put in, most have hairline cracks.

 

[begreen]

I definitely prefer a cast iron jacketed stove to a soapstone stove. Faster warmup with the same soft heat and slow release of heat.

 

[webby3650]

I definitely prefer a cast iron jacketed stove to a soapstone stove. Faster warmup with the same soft heat and slow release of heat.

Much Better in my opinion.

 

[Tahoe]

Before looking, figure out the install parameters. A rear vent stove venting into the fireplace (if possible) is going to look much better than a stove sitting in front of the fireplace with a separate chimney. Or was the intent to locate the stove elsewhere in the house if doing a straight-up install? The vaulted ceiling could be a bit of a problem with no power. Heat is going to pocket at the peak. It needs something to circulate the air like ceiling fans.

Can you post a sketch of the floorplan? Indicate fireplace location & where the vaulted ceiling is.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I went into more detail on this in a separate post about chimneys. The fireplace as it is now has a tiled hearth that runs all the way up to the roof. I think it would look equally good to have a stove pipe running up in front of it as it would running inside it. Putting a ceiling fan up there is a good idea. That open/cathedral part of the ceiling opens up to a loft, the floor of which is the 8' ceiling.

So, from these replies and others, looks like I'm down to the Woodstock progress hybrid and one of the blaze kings. People also seem to like the Pacific Energy stoves.

In terms of priorities for the stove, reliability of heat output is #1, Longevity/reliability (not cracking stones) is #2, and aesthetics is #3.

Are there other important things to look for?

Thanks,
Adam

 

[webby3650]

Why only 1 BK? If heat is #1 why not the Princess? Don’t let the claims of “soft” heat fool you. Any BK cruises really slow if needed, but can also really make some big heat if needed. With a BK, I don’t see the benefit of the iron jacket except for looks.

 

[begreen]

Based on the choices expresses so far it sounds like looks are a requirement. The Princess is anything but good looking. I was thinking of a Hearthstone Manchester because I think a new flue in front of a fireplace is going to look wrong, but that's just my opinion.

 

[webby3650]

Based on the choices expresses so far it sounds like looks are a requirement. The Princess is anything but good looking. I was thinking of a Hearthstone Manchester because I think a new flue in front of a fireplace is going to look wrong, but that's just my opinion.

The Manchester is a nice stove. It would be on my list if I was looking.

 

[webby3650]

Based on the choices expresses so far it sounds like looks are a requirement. The Princess is anything but good looking. I was thinking of a Hearthstone Manchester because I think a new flue in front of a fireplace is going to look wrong, but that's just my opinion.

I missed that part.
A rear exit stove into a liner in the fireplace would look the best, a pipe all the way up in front would look silly I’m afraid. Can you leave the fireplace intact and place the stove in another location?

 

[Tahoe]

here’s a pic. The chimney is 2 stories, maybe 30’ high. Thanks for your help

 

[Tahoe]

As for looks, yes it matters to an extent, but functionality trumps that. Also, if it matters, we burn a mix of lodge pole pine and oak (not sure what species).

 

[Blue Heron Hideaway]

whats your plan for the hearth

 

[Socratic Monologue]

I have never owned a steel or cast iron stove (though I've had two central wood furnaces), so I have no true comparison, but we like our soapstone Heritage a lot. No cracks after 5 years, and is a beautiful thing to look at year round. Yeah, it takes an hour or two to really start cranking out heat, and isn't super efficient. But if it fails for whatever reason, we'd replace it with the same model (well, the new one with the hybrid cat).

FWIW, power outages are handled really well with a small generator wired into a transfer switch to run the main furnace.

 

[begreen]

FYI The Jotul F55 can also rear exit.

whats your plan for the hearth

There will need to be a hearth in front of the hearth. Type will depend on the stove.

 

[begreen]

This is confusing and redundant with two threads. I will merge them.

Tahoe - Have you verified with a certified sweep that this will work? Is that a Zero Clearance fireplace or a true masonry fireplace?

 

[Tahoe]

This is confusing and redundant with two threads. I will merge them.

Tahoe - Have you verified with a certified sweep that this will work? Is that a Zero Clearance fireplace or a true masonry fireplace?

No I haven’t verified that either the plan for a freestanding pipe or the existing chimney will work. Thats the hard part actually... I’m having a hard time finding a qualified sweep to consult. The local fireplace store subs out to a guy with unknown credentials.