Howdy hearth members! I've been snooping on this site now for about a month and noticed how helpful everyone is.
As an adult I'm brand new to burning wood. My dad burned wood for years when I was a kid, but too long ago for me to pay any attention to it.
Current situation: The house I bought this spring is about 35 years old. The house has an exterior chimney. It's masonry with a clay flue liner. The clay liner is exactly 6"x12" inside dimensions. The chimney is 18 feet long and comes down inside the basement. You can see in the pictures that the basement wall is built out underneath the chimney. This is all concrete construction, as well as the ceiling of this built out part.
I had a friend come over who's done some work of chimneys and he put a new masonry cap on my chimney. The old one was chipped off and the top of the chimney was flat with no flashing. So he helped me seal the top off.
On the inside the previous owner had a 9 inch piece of metalbestos stuffed into the whole you can see in the ceiling. He had rammed a 3 foot piece of single wall black 6" stove pipe through the metalbestos and up into the clay flue. When we pulled that out there was creosote packed between they flue and the stove pipe about 2 feet deep from where it was sticking up from the ceiling. That didn't seem safe.
We ended up buying two new 9 inch sections if metalbestos and joined them. We put those up into the hole in the concrete ceiling and butted them directly into the bottom of the clay flue. From the metalbestos we ran a black 6 inch stove pipe down to the stove. (Quadra-Fire 4300).
After a week of burning, we had a warm afternoon, in the 60's so I let my stove go totally out. That night it dropped into the 30s so I fired it up again. When I came back down to close it down a little, there was an almost steady stream of liquid creosote dripping down on the outside of the pipe hitting the stove and sizzling. This immediately worried me so I closed my stove way down and stayed up watching it until 2:30 am until I decided it was safe to go to bed.
What I am assuming happened, is that because the clay flue is 12 inches on one side it stuck out beyond the outside of my 8" (exterior), when I fired the stove before it could heat up the 18' clay flue, the smoke would go up and condense, then run back down and leak around the bottom of the clay liner and outside my stove pipe. I guess I'm not sure where to go from here. I tore it apart tonight and took pictures.
I have a flexible stainless steel liner quoted for around $350 that would create a near seamless connection to the of the chimney. How do I connect the stove to my 6x12 clay flue? Or is it important to run a liner? If so what kind?
I'd appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks!
As an adult I'm brand new to burning wood. My dad burned wood for years when I was a kid, but too long ago for me to pay any attention to it.
Current situation: The house I bought this spring is about 35 years old. The house has an exterior chimney. It's masonry with a clay flue liner. The clay liner is exactly 6"x12" inside dimensions. The chimney is 18 feet long and comes down inside the basement. You can see in the pictures that the basement wall is built out underneath the chimney. This is all concrete construction, as well as the ceiling of this built out part.
I had a friend come over who's done some work of chimneys and he put a new masonry cap on my chimney. The old one was chipped off and the top of the chimney was flat with no flashing. So he helped me seal the top off.
On the inside the previous owner had a 9 inch piece of metalbestos stuffed into the whole you can see in the ceiling. He had rammed a 3 foot piece of single wall black 6" stove pipe through the metalbestos and up into the clay flue. When we pulled that out there was creosote packed between they flue and the stove pipe about 2 feet deep from where it was sticking up from the ceiling. That didn't seem safe.
We ended up buying two new 9 inch sections if metalbestos and joined them. We put those up into the hole in the concrete ceiling and butted them directly into the bottom of the clay flue. From the metalbestos we ran a black 6 inch stove pipe down to the stove. (Quadra-Fire 4300).
After a week of burning, we had a warm afternoon, in the 60's so I let my stove go totally out. That night it dropped into the 30s so I fired it up again. When I came back down to close it down a little, there was an almost steady stream of liquid creosote dripping down on the outside of the pipe hitting the stove and sizzling. This immediately worried me so I closed my stove way down and stayed up watching it until 2:30 am until I decided it was safe to go to bed.
What I am assuming happened, is that because the clay flue is 12 inches on one side it stuck out beyond the outside of my 8" (exterior), when I fired the stove before it could heat up the 18' clay flue, the smoke would go up and condense, then run back down and leak around the bottom of the clay liner and outside my stove pipe. I guess I'm not sure where to go from here. I tore it apart tonight and took pictures.
I have a flexible stainless steel liner quoted for around $350 that would create a near seamless connection to the of the chimney. How do I connect the stove to my 6x12 clay flue? Or is it important to run a liner? If so what kind?
I'd appreciate all the help I can get. Thanks!
