Horizontal stovepipe abomination

[N.E.K. - D.D.S.]

Look at this abomination of an installation.

The rear vent stove pipe makes a 90 degree bend the the right, goes through a long length of nearly horizontal pipe, and then another 90 degree bend into the chimney (where it obviously has to turn 90 degrees upward).

This is actually significantly BETTER than it was, because yesterday during temperatures approaching -20 F (-29 C) I had to disconnect this train wreck and clean out about 6 gallons of creosote (furnace was pouring smoke into the basement through the air intake!). This required dissembling much of the pipe for access. I reconnected it with at least a bit of incline. Previously it was completely horizontal and even had downhill dips in places.

This is a wood/oil combination furnace (Napoleon HMF 150).

Every single thing on this install was either wrong or done to such a low standard it is comical. After we moved in, I noticed what appeared to be lightning bolts across my kitchen floor. I thought I was imagining it. But it would happen periodically. I thought it was some sort of static electricity.

One day I flipped the power switch to the furnace on, and my wife in the kitchen screamed. I found the source of the arcing. I replaced the switch and the electrical wiring to the furnace.

My control box on the oil burner fried three times. The first time, this happened while we were away and the entire house froze. Luckily I turned off my water pump and drained the water so we did not have broken pipes. Furnace repair guy changed the control module.

Then sometimes I would touch the handle to the door to load wood and electrocute myself. But only sometimes. These geniuses did not connect the ground to the stove, despite it being grounded electrical wire to the stove! That would have saved me some shocks. Also there was some incorrect wiring that I corrected.

This in combination with a malpositioned igniter was the source of the problem. The shocks and arcing were happening only when the furnace was trying (unsuccessfully) to fire. Anyway, I have fixed the oil burner, but this gives some idea of what we are dealing with.

The fan limit switches were set completely wrong, causing short cycling (now fixed)
The oil and wood thermostats were wired incorrectly (this is very difficult to screw up, yet they did)
The duct work is terrible. They smashed through an old load bearing wall on this old 1800's house to put it in, and now my dining room floorboards lack support in some areas.
The air control does not work. It was apparently damaged in installation. The wood thermostat is supposed to open and close the air intake with a servo. I have to lock it in the open position (as is done in emergency situations of power outage). Normally one has to be careful because there is potential for overfiring. But not with this stove. There is so little draft, that I need to keep the air open all the time. Additionally, I need to open the ash pan to some degree to get enough air to burn.

The stove smokes into the basement.... unless it is burning well land hot, in which case we get only a small amount of smoke pushing back into the basement.

I am using wood stoves, so that I do not need to rely on this furnace. It is clearly a bad situation for wood burning. What about the oil burning side? Is that more or less demanding (and more or less dangerous) than the wood burning? Since the oil burner vents with some degree of pressure, will it push the exhaust out the chimney?

Even though I will mostly be using wood stoves upstairs, I need something as a backup and for when I am out of town. I think I would like to do a boiler and radiators. I am tired of the dust and noise. Is this current furnace going to be useful for anything? The basement generally doesn't need heating, but in the cold winters it needs to be kept at 40 or 50 degrees, and I wonder if it might be useful to have the furnace blow directly into the basement during those occasional times, using the oil burner.

Of course the biggest issue with it is venting.

Thank you.

 

[brenndatomu]

Man, that is a real train wreck!
How much higher is the chimney breech than the outlet of the furnace? And how long is the run?
You might, maybe, be able to get by with that setup (get by, not thrive!) if you do a couple things.
1. Use double wall stove pipe to the chimney, or put chimney liner insulation over the pipe to keep the flue gasses as warm as possible.
2. I assume the chimney flue has a clay liner, and is larger than 6" (7" for a wood/oil combo?) If so, putting an insulated liner in that chimney will help give you enough draft to help overcome that poor (understatement of the year!) install. Oh, and how tall is the chimney?
I'm a lil puzzled what else is (was?) wrong with the furnace that you were getting shocked...obviously having no ground is bad, but it is just there to keep you from getting shocked if something goes wrong...but when everything is right, you should not be getting shocked, even with no ground....I guess that could be an issue elsewhere in the house though too...an issue with the circuit that the furnace is tied into (assuming its not on its own?)

 

[N.E.K. - D.D.S.]

Man, that is a real train wreck!
How much higher is the chimney breech than the outlet of the furnace? And how long is the run?
You might, maybe, be able to get by with that setup (get by, not thrive!) if you do a couple things.
1. Use double wall stove pipe to the chimney, or put chimney liner insulation over the pipe to keep the flue gasses as warm as possible.
2. I assume the chimney flue has a clay liner, and is larger than 6" (7" for a wood/oil combo?) If so, putting an insulated liner in that chimney will help give you enough draft to help overcome that poor (understatement of the year!) install. Oh, and how tall is the chimney?
I'm a lil puzzled what else is (was?) wrong with the furnace that you were getting shocked...obviously having no ground is bad, but it is just there to keep you from getting shocked if something goes wrong...but when everything is right, you should not be getting shocked, even with no ground....I guess that could be an issue elsewhere in the house though too...an issue with the circuit that the furnace is tied into (assuming its not on its own?)

Sorry for long response to follow, but there is a lot of craziness. Be sure to stick with it to read about my liner with a hole cut in it.

It took me forever to troubleshoot the electrical problems. It was all the fault of the furnace installers. They cut off the ground wire so the breaker never tripped... but still had the internal grounds of the furnace hooked together. The electrical connections on it were poor, and this would often cause the furnace to stop running and require reset button. It eventually will fry the control box. Then on top of that... the igniter was in an incorrect position where I suspect it was making contact with some internal metal. When the stove was trying to fire unsuccessfully... the high voltage (but fortunately not too high amperage) of the igniter energized the whole furnace. There was such profound and creative swearing when I touched it. It would happen only sometimes... when the control box on the burner tripped. So one time out of twenty touching the furnace I would get zapped. This is like psychological experiments on rats to study 'learned helplessness'. Crazy. ANYWAY, the electrical problems are solved and the Riello oil burner is running normally and without any reset situation this whole season.

OKAY, the entry to the chimney is 47.5 inches up from the floor and the exhaust of the furnace is 43.5" so I have only four inches of rise. The length of the horizontal pipe (middle of tee to middle of tee) is 104 inches (8'8"). It seems I need at least a quarter inch of rise per linear foot... and it seems I have more than that. I wonder if the two ridiculous 90 degree bends are more of a problem than the horizontal section in general.

Good idea regarding insulation on the stove pipe.
Although the gasses are not very hot to begin with because there is so little draft on the stove.

The chimney does not have clay liner. It is a very old and large all masonry chimney. It is historic (early 1800s) with a Rumford fireplace and a brick oven (beehive oven) on top, which is the subject of a separate post that I made.

While the furnace guy was working his incompetent magic, the chimney guy put a 7" steel liner in there... which sounds okay at first.... but since it would not fit into the masonry flue that comes from the basement, he smashed out those bricks all the way up the length of the chimney to the roof.... so now my fireplace and brick oven are not usable. This is the same guy that put SPRAY FOAM in the smoke shelf of another fireplace, one width of brick away from where fire was (not to mention putting an undersized 8" round liner that caused the fireplace to do nothing but fill the house with smoke). That was the topic of yet another one of my posts, and I have photos of the burnt spray foam that I removed behind the bricks.

So you may be thinking that it is sad that my historic chimney is screwed up, but at least I have a proper sized (7") liner for the wood / oil combo furnace... right? Well, incredibly it gets a lot worse.

On the main floor there is a little old woodstove tied into the same flue as the furnace. Of course that siutuation is not to modern code, and there can be all sorts of discussion about how one "can't" put both devices on one flue, and other discussion about how "it has been done forever in many places", etc .etc. etc. BUT the incredible thing is that this little wood stove connects to the liner WITHOUT a tee.

Yes, that is right. NO TEE. The 7" steel liner has a hole cut in the side of it... and the wood stove pipe is stuck into that hole. I can not imagine how much that is affecting the draft of the furnace... or how much exhaust is blowing out and not staying in the liner. I have to get a photo up here... whenever i get a chance to open up that pipe.

This guy put no cover plate on the chimney. So the big brick chimney has a ton of draft. I am actually lucky that his laziness / neglect have at least allowed the wood and oil exhaust that doesn't go through the steel liner to at least have some pathway that is not into my house.

These are licensed chimney guy and plumber. This was all done just a bit before I bought the house.

So the obvious thing for me to do short term is insulate the basement stove pipe and put a tee to plug the steel liner hole. I hope there is enough length of steel liner. A union would not be long enough. I suppose two unions and a short piece of scrap liner would do it (though only supposed to have one union per liner, blah blah, but it is better than the situation I have now).

What about long term? I could try to move the furnace right next to the entrance of the chimney (with steel liner), although it is an awkward position....and it would not really work with the existing ductwork. I am going to be using primarily wood stoves for heat, but need to keep house from freezing when I am away. Is it even worth trying to use this furnace for something?

Thanks for reading.

 

[moresnow]

Holy smokes that's a story right there.... Sounds like I'd be looking into alternative heating options until the overall venting and stove/basement furnace installations etc. can be made safe (if even possible).
Mini splits perhaps? Dunno. 6 gallons of creo? Lordy that would be many years at my place. Many. Best of luck to ya.

 

[peakbagger]

I will refer to my prior rant. Just remember for everything wrong you find there are two or three more that you will not. IMHO survive until spring and decide if you still love the house enough to drop in another 50 to 100K. Start with a new electrical service from the roof to every outlet. Do not reuse anything and have it done by a licensed contractor that has been vetted by checking references. Have an energy audit done, implement what you can afford and then same with the heating system, yank it all insulate the basement and put in an indoor wood boiler with storage.

 

[salecker]

The abort!on should be brought to the attention of someone in charge of his license to rob folks.
In the Yukon they made it law that any home heating work has to be done by a red seal certified contractor,
This was because of crap work like you have, killed a family and their renter living in the basement.
Big old masonry chimmany that wasn't up to code for the furnace iced up and filled the house with carbon monoxide.
funny the word abort!on gets changed to choice
watch out they are everywhere now,even in a stove forum

 

[brenndatomu]

There was such profound and creative swearing when I touched it. It would happen only sometimes... when the control box on the burner tripped. So one time out of twenty touching the furnace I would get zapped. This is like psychological experiments on rats to study 'learned helplessness'. Crazy.

Funniest line I've read on here in a long time! Well, not really funny, but you know what I'm saying.

Man, I don't even know where to start with this one.

I guess the first thing would be to fix the chimney...if you even can? New liner?
Even if that works, can all the other issues be mitigated?

 

[stoveliker]

And keep the kids (if any) away from everything...

 

[N.E.K. - D.D.S.]

Holy smokes that's a story right there.... Sounds like I'd be looking into alternative heating options until the overall venting and stove/basement furnace installations etc. can be made safe (if even possible).
Mini splits perhaps? Dunno. 6 gallons of creo? Lordy that would be many years at my place. Many. Best of luck to ya.

Well, I have been using a little wood stove which has only generated a teaspoon of debris at the bottom of the tee during the same burn period. It burns hot and clean. I am putting in a liner for the other stove as well.

I'd love to put in a boiler for backup heat. I would even be okay with the idea of electric backup considering I will mostly be using wood stoves.

I will refer to my prior rant. Just remember for everything wrong you find there are two or three more that you will not. IMHO survive until spring and decide if you still love the house enough to drop in another 50 to 100K. Start with a new electrical service from the roof to every outlet. Do not reuse anything and have it done by a licensed contractor that has been vetted by checking references. Have an energy audit done, implement what you can afford and then same with the heating system, yank it all insulate the basement and put in an indoor wood boiler with storage.

Which prior rant?
You are VERY correct in saying "for everything wrong you find there are two or three more that you will not". Yesssss it is like roaches or rats.

Yes, I have inspected every inch of the electrical system and had to redo almost all of it, including almost every wire, switch, outlet, circuit breaker, etc. It was one problem on top of another. Not just technicalities of code violation... but blatant and ridiculous unsafe conditions. Incredibly, some of the REALLY old original wiring was basically okay, except for some deterioration. The standards were very high on the original work. The problems were all created in the last few decades. But yes, I could not trust ANYTHING. In fact, I had to assume that everything that was touched by the previous homeowner's goons is LIKELY to be either done like crud or downright dangerous.

The plumbing was nearly as bad. I had to rip out every single thing. Fortunately this was possible due to unfinished dirt floor basement with access to everything.

I love the house. I NEVER would have bought it if I had known about the problems. But it now feels good to have so much sweat, some literal blood, a few literal tears, and of course an incredible amount of swearing into this house.

Of course this is a wood forum.... but I need some other fuel source for when I am not here burning the upstairs wood stoves. Oil boiler? Wood/oil combo? You think the old furnace itself is useful for anything (either the wood or oil portion) if I move it? Or is it scrap??

The abort!on should be brought to the attention of someone in charge of his license to rob folks.
In the Yukon they made it law that any home heating work has to be done by a red seal certified contractor,
This was because of crap work like you have, killed a family and their renter living in the basement.
Big old masonry chimmany that wasn't up to code for the furnace iced up and filled the house with carbon monoxide.
funny the word abort!on gets changed to choice
watch out they are everywhere now,even in a stove forum

You will be appalled to learn that these guys were licensed!

The guy that did the furnace had a plumbing and heating shop. He came here when I bought the house. I was very naive at that time. He did not address the oil burner short cycling, or acknowledge any of the problems I was having... like no draft on the wood portion of the furnace. When I pointed out how the air intake was not functioning properly, he tried to say I was wrong (I am certainly not). He walked around and asked about the other plumbing projects that I needed to do, saying he is a "master plumber". He charged me a hundred bucks cash and then said he didn't want to do any of the plumbing projects.

The chimney guy is licensed, advertising and apparently working. He seems like quite a personable guy. But the things he has done are absolutely ridiculous. I don't know how to explain it, but for anyone to do these sort of things to this house, they would have to be be incompetent or unethical.

Funniest line I've read on here in a long time! Well, not really funny, but you know what I'm saying.

Man, I don't even know where to start with this one.

I guess the first thing would be to fix the chimney...if you even can? New liner?
Even if that works, can all the other issues be mitigated?

Haha.... I didn't think anyone would appreciate my analogy / humor. I find this to be a very intelligent forum overall.

Can a liner become so gunked up with creosote that it can not be cleaned and should be discarded?
If so, I inclined to do a direct vent oil boiler in the basement and focus on using wood in stoves upstairs.

If I were to fix the tee in the liner situation, and insulate the stovepipe downstairs.... would this be any good to use the oil burning portion as backup heat? I mean, we know the install is junk. But is the furnace itself worth anything, or is it obsolete?

And keep the kids (if any) away from everything...

There no kids. But still, this is a very good point.
I should get a CO monitor / meter to see if anything significant shows up.
Although the CO is mostly caused from incomplete combustion, right? Do I want to check for CO2 also (potential leakage)??

Thanks everybody - for the sympathy hahaha.

 

[peakbagger]

My rant was on your prior thead.

Not sure where you are in the "kingdom" but when I was dating a lady over there I saw and heard of a lot of horror shows. Most towns had zero building inspection, so the home owners were at the mercy of contractors. If they were any good, they were working elsewhere so there were a lot of folks working above the level of their competence. I saw a brand-new house get built in Glover by a well-regarded timber frame contractor with a serious mildew condition in the attic as they did not understand basic building construction. They knew how to make it look nice, but they cut corners. The contractor that built the septic system blew it, so the owner had raw sewerage coming out of her tank during the housewarming. The contractor who built the system would not work on it unless the owner paid to have it pumped out and sanitized. It was obvious that they had buried the 900 foot lines to the leach field too shallow with high and low spots and it was frozen solid. The heating system looked good but was built with no regard for electrical efficiency, lots of circulator pumps running 24/7 for no good reason. This same firm was building high end timber frames up in Jay and Lake Willougby. Who knows what surprises the new typically out of staters are in for, but by then the contractor is paid and long gone.

I saw/heard of two local guys that who represented themselves as skilled timberframers try to take a barn down and were clueless. It ended up a pile of kindling as they didnt realize that they had to put in temporary bracing when disassembling. They were hired by a lady from New York who thought she was getting a good deal.

My friend had a typical muddy VT driveway in the spring. She paid a local contractor to rebuild it and they hauled in sand loaded with fines in, not crushed gravel and geotextile. It looked good until spring and then it was as bad as ever. He didnt do it for free but it was obvious that he probably didnt understand what the difference was between a good driveway and a bad driveway. Most of the local roads seem to have been built and maintained to the same quality. My friend lived on the road with the town garage and even that road had its issues in the spring. Road bans didnt apply to farming so a milk truck would inevitably punch through any sort of base and leave furrowed ruts. I met several off grid solar folks who had major fires due to violating basic rules. I was helping someone do a house addition and folks thought I was overbuilding it when I was just following code. If I dared say something on the quality of work I observed I was accused of being too critical, I think it was far more important to keep the peace locally than to expect good work.

I also observed and saw a lot of folk who worked under the table. The owners may think they are getting a good deal but good luck going after someone if the work they did hurts or kills someone.

This was 12 years ago but I dont think things have gotten any better.

 

[N.E.K. - D.D.S.]

My rant was on your prior thead.

Not sure where you are in the "kingdom" but when I was dating a lady over there I saw and heard of a lot of horror shows. Most towns had zero building inspection, so the home owners were at the mercy of contractors. If they were any good, they were working elsewhere so there were a lot of folks working above the level of their competence. I saw a brand-new house get built in Glover by a well-regarded timber frame contractor with a serious mildew condition in the attic as they did not understand basic building construction. They knew how to make it look nice, but they cut corners. The contractor that built the septic system blew it, so the owner had raw sewerage coming out of her tank during the housewarming. The contractor who built the system would not work on it unless the owner paid to have it pumped out and sanitized. It was obvious that they had buried the 900 foot lines to the leach field too shallow with high and low spots and it was frozen solid. The heating system looked good but was built with no regard for electrical efficiency, lots of circulator pumps running 24/7 for no good reason. This same firm was building high end timber frames up in Jay and Lake Willougby. Who knows what surprises the new typically out of staters are in for, but by then the contractor is paid and long gone.

I saw/heard of two local guys that who represented themselves as skilled timberframers try to take a barn down and were clueless. It ended up a pile of kindling as they didnt realize that they had to put in temporary bracing when disassembling. They were hired by a lady from New York who thought she was getting a good deal.

My friend had a typical muddy VT driveway in the spring. She paid a local contractor to rebuild it and they hauled in sand loaded with fines in, not crushed gravel and geotextile. It looked good until spring and then it was as bad as ever. He didnt do it for free but it was obvious that he probably didnt understand what the difference was between a good driveway and a bad driveway. Most of the local roads seem to have been built and maintained to the same quality. My friend lived on the road with the town garage and even that road had its issues in the spring. Road bans didnt apply to farming so a milk truck would inevitably punch through any sort of base and leave furrowed ruts. I met several off grid solar folks who had major fires due to violating basic rules. I was helping someone do a house addition and folks thought I was overbuilding it when I was just following code. If I dared say something on the quality of work I observed I was accused of being too critical, I think it was far more important to keep the peace locally than to expect good work.

I also observed and saw a lot of folk who worked under the table. The owners may think they are getting a good deal but good luck going after someone if the work they did hurts or kills someone.

This was 12 years ago but I dont think things have gotten any better.

I am looking through all my postings and I don't see any replies from you. Which thread? Did it get taken down?? THAT's how you know if it is a good rant!

I suppose it makes me feel better (in a way) that it is not ONLY me that has gotten 'messed' over with quality of work.

I did a lot of work trips in really remote places in the Yukon where things can be hard to come by, and never saw anything nearly like this. I lived a lot of time in Southeast Asia in some really poor areas... and one comes across some shocking things... but yet the plumbing, electrical, masonry, etc. was generally done to a much higher level than what I am seeing here.

Yeah, my ex-neighbor (still friend) calls me a "perfectionist" when I complain about this horizontal stove pipe, or having spontaneous electrical fires.

I am sure there are some honorable and competent people around. But there sure are a lot of yahoos as well.

I think more effective than regulation... is education of the homeowners. This site makes such a huge contribution in that regard.

 

[peakbagger]

Sorry for the confusion on my rant, here is the link to another Vermont related post

Cookstove -- new or old?

I am interested in input from all you expert people here about a wood cookstove. I am considering a bunch of variables, but I'll try to layout my situation first. House is about 2500 SF poorly-insulated, rather drafty two-storey c.1790 farmhouse in Vermont. I have a two-flue center chimney. In...

www.hearth.com

 

[N.E.K. - D.D.S.]

Hahahaha, my house is not THAT bad. It is awesome, but was just ruined by previous work... but I have gotten SO much of it fixed up.

Hey, do you want to buy a furnace? I'll throw in some stovepipe which you can mount horizontally!

My wood stove situation upstairs will soon be pretty good.
Peakbagger votes for a boiler downstairs when feasible. I tend to agree.
Does anyone think this furnace good for anything if I move it so that it vents more reasonably?