First install advice on setup?

[tjcole50]

Okay so just want to get a final word here , plan on picking up stove this evening. A pleasant hearth brand new off craigslist. I hope I'm not upsetting anyone by posting this again. Just want to make sure I do this properly. Once again some advice from people here and outside of forum have me torn . I appreciate all advice so far. But as you can see the basement has a large area of brick where the stove and wood will sit. Now so far it seems I am going to run a straight piece of single wall pipe from the circle tile thimble (existing) straight out to stove to a 90 degree down into the stove? Also adding some sort of insulation around the single wall pipe around/inside the circle tile in pic. Does this sound ok ? Should the pipe through the circle tile stop flush with flue work or extend farther in? Is it ok to run the pipe straight into the flue without the flue being extended lower? Just masonry block exposed. Or does another 90 degree need applied once through the wall into the flue? Trying to do as simple as possible but safely as well. Will draft be bad with such little pipe work? Or does the tall flue help? Take it easy on me I'm new! Thanks again everyone

 

[Nick Mystic]

It's hard to tell what we're looking at in those thimble photos. Are those two photos rotated 90 degrees to the left? Have you had your chimney cleaned and inspected? What did the sweep tell you?

 

[tjcole50]

Yes some reason they are rotated where u see the square tile flue stop to the right through the thimble it's actually toward the bottom. My concern was the flue doesn't run farther down but stops and begins the flue upward flush with the bottom of the thimble. I did not have it cleaned because I recently capped both and both were clean when I looked down and up from the bottom

 

[Swedishchef]

Personally I think I would change the thimble and maybe add a liner. I find that seems to be some decent creosote buildup in the thimble. Atleast get rid of that somehow. Others will chime in, they are the PROS, I am just a newb.

 

[Nick Mystic]

Your chimney set up looks somewhat similar to mine, except you have an exterior chimney and ours is situated in the center of our house. We have three clay tile flue liners - two of which are in use. In the big fireplace on the main level I had a smoke dragon insert slammer style for the first ten years we were here since it came that way with the house and I didn't know any better. The second flue runs down to the lower level and it has a Woodstock Classic connected to it. That stove is set up much like what it appears you are planning on doing - running a six inch single wall stove pipe directly from the stove to the wall thimble so that the smoke dumps into the clay tile liner with no SS flex liner. The Woodstock Classic has a catalytic cumbuster and burns very clean. As a result the flue has remained very clean and there's been virtually nothing to clean from the flue. It seems that what creosote does develop just naturally sloughs of and drops down into the bottom of the flue tile that extends about 16" below the thimble opening in the wall. Have you reached into your thimble opening to see if there are any leaves, debris, or creosote piled up below your opening? In the outdoor photo of you house it appears there are no chimney caps, so you could have all sort of things finding their way down your flues.

One potential concern I see is the build up of mortar at the back of your thimble. It looks like the opening is obstructed about 20 - 30%. If you try to remove the mortar you should be cautious that you don't end up breaking any of the tile or loosening the connection. Also, are you fairly confident that everything behind that basement wall is non-combustible? More than likely it is if you have a concrete or cinder block wall down there, but better to know for sure. I wouldn't think about changing that clay tile thimble unless you see a crack in it. Yes, there is some creosote, but a good scrubbing with a wire brush should clean that up without a problem. Make sure you get the proper connection piece when you attach your single wall pipe to this thimble. You don't just shove a section of single wall pipe into the thimble. They make an adapter of some sort that has flange so that it fits very snug inside the clay pipe.

Is there a clean out someplace? My set up doesn't include one, so I have to use a scoop to dig out the creosote and ash that drops down into the cavity below the thimble. If you ignore doing this the pile can build up to the point where it will start blocking the passage from your stove to the chimney.

 

[begreen]

The current thimble looks like it is set up for a rear-exit stove. What Pleasant Hearth stove are you thinking of installing? What is the height of the thimble to center?

 

[tjcole50]

Image is rotated but foundation to the right is actually toward me I have camera facing toward myself through the thimble(flashlight beam shows remains) same angle shows thimble flush with foundation (pointed up my flue zooming shoes my cap clear) seems clean?
Hey nick my concerns are the same as yours! That was an older pic and I have capped both since. But I took pics with a flashlight straight down and you can see some signs of previous owners burning but not much. I also pointed the camera directly back toward myself from inside the thimble. It is definetly my block foundation. My largest concern was the flue stopping flush with the bottom of my thimble. I thought the clay should run all the way down not just expose the block work. Over all the clay seems to be in great condition I am just not sure about dumping / stopping the pipe and throwing smoke straight back as opposed to it being angled up toward the flue. Maybe I am being over the top on safety here not sure haha. Also forgot no I do not have a clean out for either section. Would be nice but I figure once temps warm back up I can get back in there with a shop vac.
Here are some pics from below the thimble/flue

 

[tjcole50]

I'm thinking of backing out of the pleasant hearth. I took a good long look at the model the guy has. The one in lowes seemed cheap with paint flaking and overall construction. I'm going today to look at the regency a I told you about last night

 

[begreen]

Does this install require a rear exit stove?

 

[Nick Mystic]

I don't know what the standard practice is regarding the clay flue liner and how far it normally comes down in relation to the thimble. My set up has the clay pipe actually extending about 16" - 18" down below the thimble to where it bottoms out. My round clay thimble (same as yours) is cut into the side of the clay flue liner. By not having the clay flue tiles extend down below your thimble I wouldn't think there is a problem since there shouldn't be any high heat down there. I understand your concern about the exposed concrete directly inline with the back of the thimble. However, that flue has obviously been used and if you don't see any sign of deterioration in that section of concrete I wouldn't worry about it. Just add it to your list of things to check whenever you clean your chimney. Always make a point of removing the stove pipe you use to connect your stove to the thimble so you can clean out the debris in the bottom of the flue cavity below the thimble and then inspect the concrete.

You should take a careful measurement of the thimble height to make sure whatever stove you purchase is low enough to fit into it. From your photos it appears that your thimble is somewhat lower than what we usually see for thimble heights. When I count the bricks on your back wall to get an estimate of the height it appears to be less than 36". Many stoves are 30" or more in height, so like begreen mentioned you might have to go with a rear exit stove in order to have enough room to attach your stove pipe. If you can't come out of the top of a stove with an elbow then you might have to do some sort of unusual offset coming off the rear of the stove in order to line up with the thimble. With accurate measurements and a diagram you can have the stove shops show you how you would make that connection. I wouldn't buy a stove before I knew how I'd make that connection since you don't want to move a 500 lb. stove into the house only to discover you can't hook it up!

 

[tjcole50]

Valid points I'm going to take some measurements here soon I will post for more advice! Thank god I came here first
Bottom of brick to center of thimble is 38-39".... Is a top exit model feasible?
Redoing the brick work which is something I would like to do would give me 15 more inches ... The previous owner built this and it eats up over a 3rd of our floor space

 

[Nick Mystic]

I just took a measurement of my standard 6" single wall 90 degree stove pipe and it looked to be about six inches from the end of the pipe to the middle of the bend. That means if you had a top exit stove it would have to be less than 32-33" according to your measurement.

 

[Nick Mystic]

I've never connected a stove from the top directly to a thimble with a 90 degree connector (not having any vertical climb before entering the thimble), so I don't know how that would affect a stove's draft. Perhaps someone with first hand experience on that type of set up could chime in.

 

[begreen]

It's not a great idea to come right off off of the flue collar with a 90 if you want a top vent stove. Can be done, but it's not great for draft. If you are going to redo the thimble and raise it up 15" that would help a lot.

 

[Nick Mystic]

I agree with begreen that having the thimble up a bit higher would probably be a better set up. However, having said that I think I would try installing a stove with your current set up first to see how it works. It might well draft fine and then you would save yourself a lot of work and possible problems. Cutting a new hole through that wall and then through a clay tile could end up cracking one or more clay tiles and then you'd have a mess on your hand trying to fix the new problem. Cutting a hole through clay tile might be delicate work. I've never tried it, but I know clay tiles can crack without too much of an impact.

 

[tjcole50]

The wife has never liked the mass the brick has to it. I told her before that I would break a couple layers down . Think that will be my next project. Remove some of that brick also frees up a lot of sq ft in that room and giving me 10-15" more vertical pipe to work with! Thanks once again everyone . Once I get started I will update with pics!

 

[begreen]

I'm with her, it is a huge field of brick.

 

[bag of hammers]

sanity check (for me) - is the "bottom of brick" measurement actually the bottom of the brick wall / top of brick floor)? So knocking out the existing hearth floor area gets you @ 16" ? If so, then based on comments above I believe I'd be a lot less stressed tearing into the existing brickwork vs. the existing chimney - that's where I'd start to try and solve the height issue right off the bat.. Although that is a lot of brick....

If that's something on the to-do list anyway, why not get the demo hammer out now. Lots of sweat but no cost. If you have some idea what the new hearth height will be (say, a few inches maybe?) then use some brick or block or tile etc to set the stove at approx same height, or just set it on the concrete floor and deal with any slight change to that section of stovepipe later, if/when you do build up a new hearth. If a new hearth is fairly uncomplicated (like maybe a pre-fab hearth pad), it would be simple to grab a buddy, move the stove off to the side, drop it in. In any case, you could burn now while you plan / budget your future renovations for that space. Just a thought....

EDIT - crap - I cross posted - sorry for the unnecessary noise...