Interesting find while cleaning offset box

[Dunadan]

I paid a chimney cleaner about a month ago to come clean out my liner. I would have done it myself, but my wife needed the stove inspected for her daycare business, and this guy took care of the inspection and the cleaning.

Anyways, I told my wife to let him know there was an offset box connecting the insert to the liner, and to make sure he cleaned out this box, since stuff coming down the liner wouldn't drop straight into the firebox, but would probably collect to some degree in this box. She garbled the message and he didn't understand what I meant, so never got around to cleaning it out, which I know.

Well, today I finally got around to removing my surround so I could clean out the offset box, and I was right, it was almost completely full of creosote, to the point where the upper exit adapter was almost entirely blocked off.

But, while cleaning it out, I noticed that the cement (?) used to seal around where the offset box male-adapter enters the insert was cracked and broken, and there was no longer a good seal around the connection.

I'm assuming this is a bad thing? Potentially with this not sealed off gases could leak into the area around the insert (the old fireplace) and eventually work their way into the house?

Looks like a simple fix, but is there some special type of cement to use? Or at least I assume it's a form of cement.

Thanks,

Sean

 

[jtp10181]

Furnace Cement, a lot of hardware stores carry stuff, or any stove shop will know exactly what you need.

 

[Dunadan]

Cemenet

Is that kinda like cement

 

[Highbeam]

When we had our liner installed the installer was convinced that we needed to add that offset box. I had to pretty well put my foot down that he instead make a bend fit which in the end we all agreed worked very well. Nice and smooth. The offset box not only creates resistance but cleaning it out becomes a major headache compared to just pushing the brush down into the firebox.

Wouldn't a crack be more likely to suck air in and reduce the stove's draft. The smoke gets sucked out of the stove. Still, air leaks are bad.

 

[Dunadan]

You probably are right about drawing air in.

My installer didn't offer up a bend as an option. The hole in the stove (not sure the technical term) was about 6" to far forward as I recall.

My fear of using the offset box was that it might reduce the draft, as the the smoke/draft has to navigate the 2 90 degree turns, but maybe air/smoke doesn't really care?

Personally, I would have thought some type of curved liner or elbow would have made more sense, but possibly there was not enough clearance above the stop top to get this to work?

 

[jtp10181]

We run into the problem quite a bit where the unit fits in fine, but theres not even enough room to get a 45 elbow on top. I found this offset box in a catalog and am thinking about showing it to the retail staff so if the customer wants a bigger unit we can offer it that way.