Chinmey Liner Question (wood stove)

[jsteed]

Hello fellow wood burners...

I have what I'm guessing is not a unique situation, but I can't seem to find an answer to my question based on searches I've done so far.

We have a 50s era home in the Seattle area. We have two fireplaces, one on the main floor and one in the basement. I have an unlimited supply of wood available on our vacation property and I recently purchased a Lopi wood stove so I can have fires in the winter in our basement since heating supply is scarce in the basement. Our chimney is setup as having 3 seperate flues. One of the three was for our old oil furnace. This has since been abandoned as we upgraded to a high efficiency gas furnace. When we upgraded to said furnace, we also had a gas water heater installed. The gas water heater now vents to the old oil furnace flue. Seems to work fine and it is clay lines from the basement to the roof line. The other two flues are for the fireplaces. I also purchased a 25' 6" stainless liner for the chimney that the wood stove would go in. As I started to lower the liner into the chimney, it became apparent that the liner would not fit. What a waste of money. So, after further inspection, the chimney in question IS clay lined. However, there is no clay liner from the fireplace until a few feet up the chimney. Also, nothing above the roof line has clay liner. The stainless liner would not fit in the portion that has a clay liner.

So... my question is: Can I run liner up to the point that the clay liner starts and still be SAFE and TO CODE?
I'm really not one to do things half ass and I want to do this right. My concern is ash/creosote falling down between the stainless liner and the brick on the lower portion of the chimney. The damper would be removed, so presumably the ash would fall down to the stove. This would be easily accessable for annual cleanout, but I'm not sure that makes it "right". I'm not concerned about the lined portion of the chimney, I'm certain it can handle the heats/gases from the wood stove. I'm also not concerned about the portion of the chimney above the roof line, as any gases that escape through the brick would be to the outside world. Further, we had the portion above the roof line redone a few years back and it is in good repair, so its unlikely that would happen anyway.

What are everyone's thoughts on running the liner only up to the portion that is clay lined?

Thank you, I appreciate your thoughts and comments.

 

[weatherguy]

That would pass for code in some states but wouldn't do it. Best thing to do is knock the clay tiles out so the liner fits.

 

[Ctwoodtick]

After clay is removed, make sure you are insulating your liner. Have a pro come out and remove tiles (not a job for a DIYer.).

 

[bholler]

The liner s hould be insulated regardless. You may be able to get away with an oval liner but i would jusr have the liners removed

 

[begreen]

Seems odd that a 6" liner wouldn't fit a fireplace chimney tile liner unless it was rectangular. What is the ID of the tile liner in question? Is it a straight shot down or is there an offset?

 

[jsteed]

Seems odd that a 6" liner wouldn't fit a fireplace chimney tile liner unless it was rectangular. What is the ID of the tile liner in question? Is it a straight shot down or is there an offset?

It is rectangular and its pretty much a straight shot to the fireplace flue. I can almost see the sky through the damper. The inside diameter of the tiles is probably just under 6" by maybe 8". I ovalized part of the SS liner and that portion of the liner seemed to fit. I contemplated ovalizing the entire 25 feet, but I would have to be careful to keep the correct orientation throughout the length of the liner, which as anyone knows is a difficult task given how squirrley that big silver snake can be.There is an incredible amount of brick in the chimney for such a small inside diameter, plus the clay liner which seems to be in good shape.

I'm shocked that folks are recommending taking the clay liner out. My understanding was that the clay liner is among the best liners for a chimney and their service life is... well... longer than mine. Removing the liner seems like an incredible amount of work. I will have to think long and hard about that.

In any event, I appreciate the feedback you all have provided. Thank you very much.

J

 

[bholler]

It is rectangular and its pretty much a straight shot to the fireplace flue. I can almost see the sky through the damper. The inside diameter of the tiles is probably just under 6" by maybe 8". I ovalized part of the SS liner and that portion of the liner seemed to fit. I contemplated ovalizing the entire 25 feet, but I would have to be careful to keep the correct orientation throughout the length of the liner, which as anyone knows is a difficult task given how squirrley that big silver snake can be.There is an incredible amount of brick in the chimney for such a small inside diameter, plus the clay liner which seems to be in good shape.

I'm shocked that folks are recommending taking the clay liner out. My understanding was that the clay liner is among the best liners for a chimney and their service life is... well... longer than mine. Removing the liner seems like an incredible amount of work. I will have to think long and hard about that.

In any event, I appreciate the feedback you all have provided. Thank you very much.

J

Service life of clay is about 30 years if it isnt exposed to rapid heat changes which will crack it. Insulated stainless is better in every way for all but coal.

 

[barnaclebob]

What area of Seattle are you in? I can give you the name of guy who is doing my new chimney. He seems to know what hes talking about but hasn't actually done the install yet due to some complications with the house. Our chimney has a clay liner thats 6" across on the inside and it would only have been able to have a liner put inside of that if the clay liner was perfectly aligned with no steps...it wasn't.

 

[bholler]

It is rectangular and its pretty much a straight shot to the fireplace flue. I can almost see the sky through the damper. The inside diameter of the tiles is probably just under 6" by maybe 8". I ovalized part of the SS liner and that portion of the liner seemed to fit. I contemplated ovalizing the entire 25 feet, but I would have to be careful to keep the correct orientation throughout the length of the liner, which as anyone knows is a difficult task given how squirrley that big silver snake can be.There is an incredible amount of brick in the chimney for such a small inside diameter, plus the clay liner which seems to be in good shape.

I'm shocked that folks are recommending taking the clay liner out. My understanding was that the clay liner is among the best liners for a chimney and their service life is... well... longer than mine. Removing the liner seems like an incredible amount of work. I will have to think long and hard about that.

In any event, I appreciate the feedback you all have provided. Thank you very much.

J

And removing the clay usually isdnt that bad. We can usually get it done in under 2 hours.

 

[pjarnold19]

Had to do the same thing. Bought our house two years ago. House inspection of wood burning fireplace upstairs and wood stove downstairs checked out good. That fall thought we should bring in a chimney sweep to clean everything and make sure we were ready for winter.

Turns out the fireplace was rusted out in the corners and smoke would circle back into the house and wood stove down stairs had a rusted out pipe that goes from stove to the clay flue and the Daka firebox was split on both sides and welded over.

Chimney sweep recommended that if you are going to replace horizontal pipe to the flue that we should upgrade to a stainless steel insert since everything would be opened up. Decided to hold off on everything....was really bummed. Never have burned wood before but I was really excited to do it and really enjoy cutting and splitting wood.

Fast forward two years. Remodeling the basement now and timing was good to upgrade wood stove and flue. Found out the flue was too narrow to insert the 6” stainless steel insert. It was 7” width and rectangular. Would need a perfectly straight flue with no concrete spillage and that was not the case. Had to knock out entire clay flue. They were able to do that fairly easy.

It was highly recommended to knock the clay out and do the stainless steel insert considering our situation. Since everything was going to be opened up now it made the most sense to just update everything or it would have cost even more money down the road to have to open everything up again to update the clay to stainless. When they did knock the flue out they noticed it was cracking in a couple of areas as well.

Got everything ready now. Just waiting for remodel to be complete and very excited to burn wood this winter! We purchased the Quadrafire Adventure II w/Nickel trim and the fan option.

Pics below to show the fresh air intake and pipe to the flue and also we installed a fresh air intake for our hvac system just down the hallway from the wood stove to help circulate the air throughout the burning season. Plan to just run the fan on the hvac system to move the air.

Feel the delay was a blessing as I was able to stalk every forum out there for ideas. May not be perfect but I feel good about this setup.

 

[T-roy_]

Getting it right is important and peace of mind is priceless.