first post and sweep comes tomorrow

[delp]

greetings to all,

first, what a great site! thanks to all who post and share their knowledge.

for now, this is a test to see if i can show you a picture of the chimney structure in the house....more to follow as soon as i see whether or not attaching the picture worked...

 

[delp]

hurray. it worked!

okay, this structure starts in the basement and goes straight up to the second floor. it seems to disappear in the finished third floor attic, but the chimney on the roof has 6 old clay looking stacks coming out of it.

there are two fireplaces on each side of this structure on the first and second floor, and two "holes" on each side of the basement structure. the house had been rehabbed when i bought it 2005, and the water heater's exhaust is connected to one of the "holes"/flues in the basement. i doubt highly that there is any sort of liner in there for that.

what i want to do is have a stove installed in the living room, and i am most certainly having the chimney lined.

i have a million questions, doubts and concerns tumbling in my head, and am not sure as to how to order them so as to ask the right kinds of questions. it would be of immense help if any one would be willing to start a conversation that might help me figure out what the most important things are to consider.

the sweep comes tomorrow for an inspection, and i want to be as ready as possible.

thank you for you help!

 

[Adios Pantalones]

If you're lining, then you are 95% probable in great shape already. What a cool structure to have in the house.

How big is the house, what's the layout, and how open is the floor plan?

Too bad you can't just turn the whole thing into a masonry heater- that would be pissa.

 

[delp]

omg, so excited to have response.

the house is small 18'wide x 32' long: basement, 1st, 2nd, and finished attic. smallish, but a sweet row in pittsburgh, pa. each floor is about 600sq ft., i guess.

1st floor is open floor plan with living and open kitchen, and that crazy chimney sticking out about 5' between the two area. basically, the thing is like a huge triangle, with the base on the wall shared with my neighbors. since the ceiling joists are exposed, and the only thing separating the 1st and 2nd floor is 3/4" pine floors, i'm hoping that some strategically placed openings in the floor will help the heat rise right up to the second floor.

right now i'm thinking of getting the small regency stove. it would sit in the masonry fireplace (probably originally gas?). i'll want to repoint the old fireplace for safety and looks.

i guess one of the first things i'm curious about is what to ask of the sweep tomorrow, especially in terms of type of liner, caps, etc.

i am so excited and also terrified... (= total newbie)

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I have a log home with log beams and thinnish wood flooring- total is maybe 1600-1800 sf. The bottom floor is a pretty open floor plan, with a central staircase to the second floor. It sounds like you have a similar setup.

I have a Hampton HI300 insert downstairs and it heats the whole house pretty well. Heat goes up the stairwells, but also seems to permeate through the wood floor to the second floor. Watch out if putting in openings- there are regulations about it because they allow fire to spread quickly between floors.

 

[delp]

good point about the openings. i'm totally committed to being safe and on the up-and-up; the saw will remain in the basement until further research.

thanks, PE, for your thoughts.

 

[Cearbhaill]

I can't help you with any specs or technical stuff, but just wanted to say what a lovely and unique looking piece of work that thing is.
A challenge to decorate around, but at the same time what an opportunity!

FWIW I have my insert in a basement with an unfinished ceiling and a stairway and the warmth gets to the upstairs just fine.
If you are like me and prefer sleeping in a bit cooler space than lounging in the living room, you'll be fine. Better than fine as wood heat is for the win!

Welcome!

 

[delp]

thanks, cearbhaill!

it is quite the presence on the 1st floor, but makes for a nice way to delineate between the kitchen and living area. i am very excited about the prospect of heating the place with wood, and to cut free from the gas company as much as possible.

an insert would be a neater, tidier look than a stove, which may be overkill for such a relatively small area, but i'd rather be too warm than chilled. i've spent the last three years chasing drafts in winter and then tightening them up in summer, but still, an all brick building from 1890 is always going to be cold.

thanks for your response. best, delp

 

[edthedawg]

Delp,

You have a lot of stuff to think about... That firebox opening - how tall is it? how wide? how deep? What kind of hearth is there? Could make the difference between a freestanding or insert stove.

You also want to determine how tall your chimney is here - the liner will run from just below the top of the firebox to the top of the chimney. If it's 1+2+attic+whatever sticks out the roof, that's looking like better than 30 feet, and you start overdrafting with a lot of stoves there. A flue damper helps correct this, but you have to factor accessing that into your installation.

Ultimately a liner is a liner - you probably want a 6" stainless steel (SS) liner, probably want it insulated, probably need to have a sealing plate w/ a spark-arresting cap on the top, and almost always want some kind of a blockoff plate down below (@ top of firebox), regardless of whether you select a freestanding or insert stove. This is all pretty routine stuff - hopefully the core of your assembly is adaptable to such devices. Your note that "the roof has 6 old clay-looking stacks coming out of it" scares me a little - do you know where those all go?? Maybe you could snap a pic of that chimney top and show us?

Back to your hearth - regardless of what you have now, the stove you select will have specific requirements for clearances, floor protection coverage, and the insulation (minimum R-value) that floor protection needs to provide. Building a hearth is easy. Building one you're happy with, in light of such... unique?... construction - that may be a little harder. Again - a pic just about face-on to the opening would help us discuss it better w/ you...

And the biggest possible issue you face has not been mentioned, and also has very little to do w/ your flue: What do you have for wood? Do you have hardwood already cut, stacked, seasoned, and dry? Or are you assuming you will just be able to Find It Somewhere? That will be a very tall task indeed. You may be able to find wood for sale - probably lots of it - but it won't likely be seasoned and/or dry, despite anything you are told about it. Your options include buying a compressed product, like EcoFirelogs or BioBricks, and burning those... But how you plan to get, store, and carry wood on an annual / weekly / daily basis all needs to be planned out. Wood is inherently dirty - you're not gonna want to store lots of it in your nice finished living room... Hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle to carry wood daily/weekly from your dry outside storage point to the stove itself.

One final tidbit of advice: Watch what you are told by installers, sweeps and firewood suppliers, until you find people you truly believe and trust. As noted above - it's easy to say wood is seasoned, or a damper / blockoff plate / liner insulation isn't needed - unscrupulous sellers get the same $$ for skipping the real work. You are here, so you obviously want to get it done right.

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your wood burning...

 

[karri0n]

Great post Ed.

 

[ROYJ24]

greetings to all,

first, what a great site! thanks to all who post and share their knowledge.

for now, this is a test to see if i can show you a picture of the chimney structure in the house....more to follow as soon as i see whether or not attaching the picture worked...

 

[ROYJ24]

greetings to all,

first, what a great site! thanks to all who post and share their knowledge.

for now, this is a test to see if i can show you a picture of the chimney structure in the house....more to follow as soon as i see whether or not attaching the picture worked...

I see a problem already. U have spirits that will gladly remove for free since u r a fellow hearth member. %-P

 

[delp]

EdtheDawg! your post is the kind of critical thinking that i'm after. thank you for your incredibly thoughtful observations!

well, the sweep came yesterday and i am crestfallen. i have six flues, only four of which seem "passable." sweep says that those that seem passable (my word not his) start to angle off about four feet from the top of the chimney, and who knows what happens after that...also, it seems he could see that some of the wythe walls have bricks missing, so bricks have probably tumbled down in there and are no more than obstacles to inserting a liner.

he's proposed that he can bring in a mason colleague and do a more thorough exploratory assessment at the tune of $400...he imagines that the final work to be done would require breaking into my massive "chimney structure" on each floor to be able to locate problem areas and clear thing out for the liner.

argh. i feel like i just found out that there's no santa...

 

[SteveT]

Hopefully you will be able to work it out with the mason and get that beauty up and running. Having a functional stove in there would really be something.

I wanted to weigh in with one comment contrary to Ed's excellent advice. I it were me, I would follow all of the suggestions except for insulating the liner. Like you, I have an inside masonry chimney (not nearly as elaborate as yours) and I didn't insulate the liner.

By not doing so I find I am getting great heat in the upstairs as the masonry upstairs is usually around 100 degrees when the stove is running. There's about 100 square feet of exposed masonry on the second floor and at that temperature I am radiating a lot of heat. I didn't expect that (in fact I figured that I might have to insulate the liner later) but my putting it off inadvertently turned my insert into more of a whole house heater.

Best of luck.

 

[RonB]

You may also get some info and bid from a "poured in place" type flue contractor. This type of poured flue would likely eliminate any need for a mason to bust into the chimney on each floor. From time to time you see this type of flue poured on This Old House. I used a "Golden Flue" poured flue contractor for my chimney. Don't get discouraged, but just reset your time clock so that you will be fully ready to burn by next heating season. Good luck! Keep us update on your progress. Oh yes, Welcome to the forum!!

 

[delp]

czarczar, RobB and EngineRep, et al, thanks for your encouragement and good info.
i really need to sit with all this and figure out a ton of stuff. even though i got a very good feeling about the honesty and professionalism of the sweep who came by on friday, i am tempted to get a "second opinion," since the cost and mechanics of all this are not unlike those of a significant medical procedure.

i will continue to read and learn from all of you who generously post here, and hope to return soon with news of good progress toward heating the house as i'd like, with wood.

best to all,
delp

 

[jeff6443]

I thnk thats old grand dad . I m a jermiah weed guy . Like all us fighter pilots . But you need to remove that now . JM

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

I thnk thats old grand dad . I m a jermiah weed guy . Like all us fighter pilots . But you need to remove that now . JM

Naw, much better than that.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

I thnk thats old grand dad . I m a jermiah weed guy . Like all us fighter pilots . But you need to remove that now . JM

old grandad , NOT , thats john jameson, which happens to be my favorite single malt irish, only remove when the bottle's spent.