Installing wood stove in old ZC space

[Jacklumber]

I have a 1980s zero clearance FMI which won't fit an insert. My plan is to remove this factory fireplace, create an insulated box (How is a question) and install an Ideal Steel. The fireplace facade is single layer brick and removing and restoring is beyond my budget, so I'll be using a drill, saw saw and other tools I can borrow to take it out fragment by fragment, piece by piece. This fireplace chimney is not masonary, behind the steel firebox will probably be wood and insulation, so I won't be using a blow torch to alleviate any forum fears. The hearth is 4 bricks raised, firebox is hollow undernearth so will need to build up a new large insulated firebox to fit the stove which will sit roughly 2/3rds in 1/3rd out of firebox.

I've spent the last few weeks wall to wall youtube learning, in preparation for the 'big job'. (and this forum of course). Fortunately I have a friend (He's a heating engineer) who has cut out a zero clearance before), he's lending me his tools and though not a chimney expert himself is a great resource. He doesn't know it yet but he'll be helping me on the roof to install a new chimney liner - after helping me remove the old one). If I figure out how to add photos I will. I Photoshopped an IS and a US stove 3000. US stove required 26" front clearance to combustible floor, I have 16" hence Ideal Steel. If I go with an ash pan on the IS I'll need to remove 2 rows of hearth bricks for head clearance. Sooo... Has anyone had experience doing something like this? I'm on a vertical learning curve here. Am I mad?

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[Jacklumber]

Ok I see how to add pics... First is how it looks today. 2nd pic is with a US Stove 3000 with 2 rows of bricks removed from hearth. The 3rd is with Ideal Steel, with current hearth height and quite forward so looks big. Should lower hearth really, then I can have ash pan.

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[kennyp2339]

Don't waist your hard earned money on US stove products, the stove will fall apart on you in 3 years and be garbage. If your on a budget look at Englander stove products, A 30NC will compliment that area nicely.

 

[Ashful]

Don't waist your hard earned money on US stove products, the stove will fall apart on you in 3 years and be garbage. If your on a budget look at Englander stove products, A 30NC will compliment that area nicely.

Lots of reports here endorsing this sentiment. If on a budget, go Englander. They’re sold under other names at some big box stores, so do a search here.

Also, to the OP, I didn’t see any mention of chimney liner, but you’re going to want an insulated liner in that cracked tile flue.

 

[begreen]

Also look at 3 cu ft SBI stoves by Drolet and Flame. They are good low cost heaters.

 

[Jacklumber]

I'm looking at the Englander and it seems to tick all the boxes. Great value too. Thanks for the advice on US Stoves, will stay away. Will research Drolet and Flame too. Englander moves up the charts to No. 1 in the meantime. Anyway, have borrowed angle grinder and saw saw, so sometime next week is the big day (Demolition Factory Fireplace). I might start a new thread when that happens sorry for hijacking this one.

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[Jacklumber]

Lots of reports here endorsing this sentiment. If on a budget, go Englander. They’re sold under other names at some big box stores, so do a search here.

Also, to the OP, I didn’t see any mention of chimney liner, but you’re going to want an insulated liner in that cracked tile flue.

Once the steel firebox is out I can take a look at the flue and see if it is suitable for a stove. Looks like an 8" diameter.

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[begreen]

I am going to start a new thread for you. We didn't know this was a Zero Clearance fireplace. The clearance constraints for installing a freestanding stove will work for the proposed installation. Look at alcove requirements for the stoves you are interested in. You might be better off installing a modern EPA ZC fireplace if the intent is to retain the current brick facade. Is there good access from the rear for the removal of the current fireplace?

 

[Jacklumber]

Thanks for creating the new thread begreen. There is actually very good access from the back. The bricks are a facade and single layer. I was originally looking at Insert. My goal is to significantly reduce heating bills on 2800 sf and a unit EPA below 2 grams per hour. The only inserts I found fitting this criteria (eg Large Flush Hybrid-Fyre was no.1) were $4k+ and I heard that freestanding stoves give off more heat, whilst the inserts require a fan and I think they are generally noisy. Here's the wall at the back. looking at the flue picture again, maybe the flue is 6". Regarding removing the current fireplace from the back, do you think this would be easier?

[/ATTACH]

 

[begreen]

Unfortunately an insert is not an option for installing into this fireplace. It might be replaceable with an modern EPA ZC fireplace, but fitting it from the rear while maintaining proper fitment to the existing structure could be challenging.

 

[Poindexter]

I will not be suprised to hear your 4 brick hearth height is a veneer on a plywood box. That is to say you might pull one layer of brick off the hearth surface and be looking at a plywood box .

Where in california are you? How much is your ac bill compared to your heat bill?

What you have right now is perfectly good ambience that probably helps the resale value of your home.

How much more would it cost you to keave the ambience burner alone and put in a free standing stove somewhere else? In dollars.

How many btus are you really using every year for heat?

I am not trying to discourage or dishearten you. This just doesnt read like a project with significant or short economic justification. If your real budget is in the $2-3k range it might make more sense to just make a one time overpayment on the mortgage, have the $5-10k interest savings over the life of the loan in earlier payoff or increased equity when you sell and buy the wife a couple new sweaters.

Mine is only one voice. I know year in and year out i am buying 250 to 300 million btus for heat and domestic hot water.

From my point of view modern inserts make very little economic sense unless they are truly plug and play. If you can drop an insulated liner down your existing chimney, put in a block off plate, slide a modern insert in the existing firebox and start burning, well ok, your install cost is low, but five sides of your firebox are shielded from the living space by brickwork.

This is not your situation. You dont have a fireplace where Betsy Ross was cooking beef stew before chili was invented. You have an ambience burner so heavily engineered it cant even swallow a fireplace insert.

Not trying to insult you, just sharing what i see.

 

[Jacklumber]

Yup. I understand that the firebox will not take an insert, this led me to the idea of cutting it out.

Answering your questions, I live in a rural part of the San Fransico Bay Area. We don't have to use a/c thanks to tight insulation. Last year's heating bill was $2.5k.

Unfortunately I don't have any other place for a freestanding stove.

I'm taking in the issues raised about an insert and the issue with trying to remove ZC from the back wall. I assume none of you think cutting it out is feasible either. FYI Bay Area homeowners wanting to sell may very soon be required to retrofit any fireplaces not meeting 2020 EPA standards. Since I have two of these ZC fireplaces it may become an expensive problem when I sell down the line.

 

[bholler]

Cutting it out is pretty easy. But to me the removal is not the problem. The problem I see is meeting the clearance requirements for an alcove install. I really don't know that it is possible while keeping the facade. Also you will need as whole new chimney not just a liner.

 

[Poindexter]

Are the two exisitng ambience burners identical make/model?

$2.5k annual is good to know, how many btus or therms or kilowatts was that?

What i am getting at is the "do it right" install price is going to have a multiyear payback, all however many cords you will have to process for "free" before you break even on the install price and can start processing corwood for free to start chipping away at the price in dollars you aleady paid for all the wood you already burned.

From over here at my table spending $4200 on a better wood stove to replace my pretty good freestander, keeping my hearth and chimney, literally plug and play, i made my money back in one heating season just in savings on the oil bill compared to not running a wood stove at all.

 

[Jacklumber]

September 2016 - September 2017 was 1291 Therms, $2,332.60, average cost $1.81 a Therm. PG&E publish a lower rate of about $1.30 a Therm but raise it to $1.90 if when you go over 14 Therms in a month. If my math is right 1 US Therm = 100,000 BTU so we used 13 Millions BTU.

 

[Jacklumber]

bholler how much clearance do I need for an alcove install? Also, when you say I'd need to build a new chimney, (I hope) you're talking about a firebox rebuild to code, 28" gauge sheet metal with 1" spacers at the back for air circulation, a block off plate above, remove the old chimney liner and replace it with a new one. I hope you're not saying I have to knock down the whole structure on the side of the house?

I think since we started this thread my budget has gone up considerably.

Would this solution below stand any chance?

Example pic shows a Woodstock Ideal Steel Hybrid 210 (31.5"h x 29.5"w x 23.5"d) If too large then the
Englander 30NCH is (29.5"h x 24.25"w x 35"d) - Toss up between the 2 right now but being from England, I'm leaning towards the Englander.

The firebox opening would be 43.25"h wide by 44.38"w.

Length of hearth extention beyond front of stove: (Ideal Steel 21.75") (Englander 30NCH 21.75")
Side distance from brick facade: (Ideal Steel 6.875") (Englander 30NCH 9.525")
Head clearance from brick facade: (Ideal Steel 11.75") (Englander 30NCH 13.75")
Depth of new insulated steel firebox: TBA

begreen? bholler? Poindexter? This will work you know it will. Right?
BTW Pointexter, yes both ZCs are the same make and model.

 

[bholler]

bholler how much clearance do I need for an alcove install? Also, when you say I'd need to build a new chimney, (I hope) you're talking about a firebox rebuild to code, 28" gauge sheet metal with 1" spacers at the back for air circulation, a block off plate above, remove the old chimney liner and replace it with a new one. I hope you're not saying I have to knock down the whole structure on the side of the house?

I think since we started this thread my budget has gone up considerably.

Would this solution below stand any chance?

Example pic shows a Woodstock Ideal Steel Hybrid 210 (31.5"h x 29.5"w x 23.5"d) If too large then the
Englander 30NCH is (29.5"h x 24.25"w x 35"d) - Toss up between the 2 right now but being from England, I'm leaning towards the Englander.

The firebox opening would be 43.25"h wide by 44.38"w.

Length of hearth extention beyond front of stove: (Ideal Steel 21.75") (Englander 30NCH 21.75")
Side distance from brick facade: (Ideal Steel 6.875") (Englander 30NCH 9.525")
Head clearance from brick facade: (Ideal Steel 11.75") (Englander 30NCH 13.75")
Depth of new insulated steel firebox: TBA

begreen? bholler? Poindexter? This will work you know it will. Right?
BTW Pointexter, yes both ZCs are the same make and model.





View attachment 201066

You need to look up the alcove clearance requirements for both stoves. You are no where near what is required. By a new chimney I am talking about what you are referring to as the liner. The outer structure is a chase the metal pipe inside is the chimney. You will want one tested to 2100 degrees. What you have is not.

What you are describing as a firebox rebuild is not. It is simply shielding. You still need to look up the clearance requirements for alcove installs for the stoves in question. The Englander is probably going to need additional r value in the hearth also.

 

[Ashful]

You dont have a fireplace where Betsy Ross was cooking beef stew before chili was invented.

Don't think I don't know where that was aimed.

I have nothing to add on the OP's question, about installing an insert in that box, but I do have a lot of experience with running stoves installed in masonry fireplaces. So, a few thoughts on this:

First, the Englander NC30 is a monster heater, by all accounts. You don't exactly live in Alaska, or even eastern Pennsylvania. San Francisco has comparatively mild winters, and everyone contributing to this thread is coming from the perspective of winters that are 20F to 60F colder than you. That is huge. You are going to completely blast yourself out of that relatively small space, running it on 60F days with 40F nights in your average January.

Second, putting a radiant stove like the Ideal Steel into a masonry fireplace is an awful recipe. Most of its heat will go toward heating up the firebox and surrounding masonry, doing an excellent job of heating your back yard, while wasting most of your hard-won firewood. I know, because this is precisely what I did, times two stoves, for three years. Moving over to a stove with a convective design was the answer.

Third, given your climate, I would want a stove that can put out very minimal heat. Heat transfer into the room is a product of surface area and surface temperature (let's not get mired in discussion of emissivity), and so the two ways you can reduce heat output is to go with a tiny stove or find a stove that can run the lowest temperature. Here's where we'd normally start pushing you toward Blaze King, since no other brand can run anywhere near as low, per firebox volume. However, in your case, the short burn times of a tiny stove might not be a bad thing. Let's face it, you want heat when it hits a low of 40F at night in January, but don't exactly need the heat when temps go back up to 60F the next day. If you load up a BK and run it on low, you'll satisfy yourself with the low heat output, but it will be burning all night, the next day, the following night, and into the second day. Not what you need.

Fourth, the aforementioned small stove will also help you meet the clearance requirements, so here's where I turn it back over to begreen and bbholler, who can do a much better job than me at pointing you toward the stove that actually meets these goals.

 

[Poindexter]

Ok. I have been thinking about this one offline.

13M btu is not very many, but looking at a 300 to 400 heating bill in the cold months i can relate too.

I imagine sooner or later, probably sooner in california, you will need epa 2020 burners only to sell your house.

How much would it cost to brick one of them shut, rendering it unusable?

On the second one, how much would it cost to brick the opening shut, extend the hearth, set an epa2020 freestander on the hearth, run stove pipe straight up as far as you can in the room then elbow into the existing stack and meet a liner in the stack up there?

Plenty of epa2020 freestanders require no R value from the hearth, just ember protection.

This would be a more expensive install, but it would be done correctly.

The other thing is you would be, i think, much less likely to have an unexpected (expensive) suprise during demolition.

That potential, the expensive suprise during demolition, is the part that gives me the heebie-jeebies in this thread.

 

[Poindexter]

@Ashful , there is a bluemillion existing fireplaces back east, all kinds of sizes.

While i am generally opposed to inserts, in situations where an insert is a plug and play option they can make sense.

Making backflips to fit an insert doesnt make sense to me.

 

[begreen]

The proposed idea is not an alcove installation. And this point may be moot for the selected stoves. The Ideal Steel and the Englander 30-NC manuals make no mention of alcove installation. They may not be approved for alcove installation. There are other stoves approved for an alcove installation, with strict guidelines, but installation may require dismantling the interior brick wall facade. Most alcove installs require a ceiling clearance of 84".

The issue with the proposed idea is that it is untested. In order for this to work the brick facade would need to have been mounted on a non-combustible surface with non-combustible framing. The odds of the current installation having this construction are very slim if not nil. The wall would need to be rebuilt or at least the lower part would need to be in order to completely isolate the heat produced by the stove from any combustibles surrounding it.

If the opening size is close, it may be easier to install a modern ZC fireplace behind this wall of brick, though I'm not sure of their 2020 compliance. Or put in a gas log set in the fireplace or replace with a gas ZC and call it done.

 

[Poindexter]

Ashful has a good point about +60s daytime.

How about a pellet stove in this situation? He could switch on when he gets home from work, switch off when he leaves for work.

No truck, no chainsaw, no splitter, no nightmare stories trying to buy seasoned wood. Install ought to be a snap.

 

[begreen]

Ashful has a good point about +60s daytime.

How about a pellet stove in this situation? He could switch on when he gets home from work, switch off when he leaves for work.

No truck, no chainsaw, no splitter, no nightmare stories trying to buy seasoned wood. Install ought to be a snap.

If the goal is heating then that might work. If the goal is resale value, then maybe not. Pellet stoves are not for everyone. They are a small furnace and not quiet. A lot of folks would not want that noise in their living room. Gas, if available is quiet.

 

[BKVP]

Solid fuel heaters can be installed into factory built fireplaces. There are requirements. First, you cannot make any changes to the fireplace (including removing refractory ie brick panels) in order to make the insert fit into the fireplace. An insulated liner must be installed into the existing fireplace chimney. The fireplace must be tested and approved UL127.

I would suggest a thorough inspection to make 100% the fireplace and chimney systems were installed correctly.

 

[bholler]

Solid fuel heaters can be installed into factory built fireplaces. There are requirements. First, you cannot make any changes to the fireplace (including removing refractory ie brick panels) in order to make the insert fit into the fireplace. An insulated liner must be installed into the existing fireplace chimney. The fireplace must be tested and approved UL127.

I would suggest a thorough inspection to make 100% the fireplace and chimney systems were installed correctly.

Even if the fireplace says you can't? And if yes does that mean your company assumes the liability of that fireplace?

In this case it doesn't matter much the op wants to remove the firebox and put a stove in its place