After 2 burn seasons, I am doing a much needed total rebuild on my VC Encore 2140 cat stove, AND moving it to a new home. The new installation will have the stove tucked fully inside a nice big 3' x 4' fireplace, which should allow the chimney brick to capture lots of radiant heat and will still allow enough room to top load. While I'd like to start fires with front doors open and maybe use the fireplace screen on rare occasions, most of the burn time will be in cat mode. The plan is to use a modern flex steel chimney liner to exhaust straight up the chimney (20 ft.) and cap off the top of the chimney. I have access to a factory 6" flue outlet, and also have a steel oval to 8" adapter.
So my question of the moment is, should I use 6" or 8" chimney liner? As discussed elsewhere, these stoves are sensitive to air leaks... is there risk of having too much draft with the wrong flue size? The mfr. recommendations allow use of a 6" flue for closed front use only, and suggest a 8" flue pipe for open front burning. With the chimney sealed off (mostly uniform flue temps) and a straight shot up and out of the stove, what will the difference be in draft characteristics be between the two sizes? Would adding damper assy. (pipe + damper) be necessary?
Also have noticed during summer frequent old smoke smells from the bare open fireplace (damper closed) indicating that it may be subject to backpressure/downdrafts. Could this be a factor when stove is installed, too? ...or is this just a byproduct of having a big fireplace in a small house and would not factor in once stove is in place?
6" or 8"? Any advice?
So my question of the moment is, should I use 6" or 8" chimney liner? As discussed elsewhere, these stoves are sensitive to air leaks... is there risk of having too much draft with the wrong flue size? The mfr. recommendations allow use of a 6" flue for closed front use only, and suggest a 8" flue pipe for open front burning. With the chimney sealed off (mostly uniform flue temps) and a straight shot up and out of the stove, what will the difference be in draft characteristics be between the two sizes? Would adding damper assy. (pipe + damper) be necessary?
Also have noticed during summer frequent old smoke smells from the bare open fireplace (damper closed) indicating that it may be subject to backpressure/downdrafts. Could this be a factor when stove is installed, too? ...or is this just a byproduct of having a big fireplace in a small house and would not factor in once stove is in place?
6" or 8"? Any advice?
