Hi - I have an older Heatilator fireplace in my house and I'd like to tear it all out and put in a small wood stove. The room is a small addition off the back of our house. The heatilator goes up through a small "attic" space and out to a sheet metal chimney that is square and painted to look like a masonry chimney. After I remove the heatilator is it ok and safe to use this existing "chimney" to run the flue through? I intend to use single wall on the inside of the house and double wall insulated pipe through the attic and out through the roof. I guess I was just hoping to run the double wall pipe this way instead of messing with the roof and buying an attic box when the heatilator already has a metal box through the attic area. Any advice would be helpful - thanks!
Heatilator to Woodstove conversion
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This will require some careful planning. We will need more info and some pictures of the current installation. Before proceeding, have you considered installing an insert instead? That may be much simpler and less expensive.
That's why the request for pictures. If this is a heatform-style metal fireplace (sometimes called a heatilator) then an insert can be installed. If this is a Heatilator brand zero clearance fireplace, then an insert installation must be permitted in the documentation. From what you have described you may have the former.
It's definitely Heatilator brand - from the 70's I believe. I have the manual somewhere. I'll get some pictures of it and the chimney.
I wouldn't try to save any of that. But if you really want I am sure you could reuse the metal chase
Have you gone through the manual? Is it possible to put an insert in this with an insulated liner?
I see nothing allowing an insert and lots of places stating only use parts specified for this specific fireplace.
Poindexter
Minister of Fire
I had a heatilator. The exact model number was partially obliterated so I had to look at a lot of model numbers. The short version is my one, circa 1980, would not tolerate an insert - and the chimney was supported by the firebox, so I had to take the whole thing out to put in Class A chimney and a wood stove.
I would be very nervous of anyone saying you could thread new chimney through the heatilator pipe. Looking at your install manual it looks like if you pull the firebox the chimney pipe will come crashing down. My local installer took mine apart from the top down. There were a couple screws through cheesy sheetmetal into the framing of my stove room ceiling, but nothing like on my new radiation shield box for the Class A chimney I have now.
What we did at my place, what the installer did with my permission, was pull all the pipe and the firebox, everything made by heatilator except the bit that was half buried in the roof shingles. The new doohickey to get half buried in the new shingles next time I replace the roof is in the garage and there is a secondary piece up there now between the heatilator shingle interface and the Class A chimney.
I have zero regrets. The best thing about my old heatilator is the house was built around it so my new Class A chimney is a straight shot up where the old pipe was.
I would be very nervous of anyone saying you could thread new chimney through the heatilator pipe. Looking at your install manual it looks like if you pull the firebox the chimney pipe will come crashing down. My local installer took mine apart from the top down. There were a couple screws through cheesy sheetmetal into the framing of my stove room ceiling, but nothing like on my new radiation shield box for the Class A chimney I have now.
What we did at my place, what the installer did with my permission, was pull all the pipe and the firebox, everything made by heatilator except the bit that was half buried in the roof shingles. The new doohickey to get half buried in the new shingles next time I replace the roof is in the garage and there is a secondary piece up there now between the heatilator shingle interface and the Class A chimney.
I have zero regrets. The best thing about my old heatilator is the house was built around it so my new Class A chimney is a straight shot up where the old pipe was.
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