Looking for advice on ALL of it

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wyndsurfr

New Member
Nov 5, 2015
17
Western North Carolina
Hey folks, been lurking around the Hearth forums a bit and decided to join... A little about what I have going on here. We live in a VERY small home, 600-ish square feet. Because of this, I built a wicked bad outdoor furnace, that works like a champ and has been awesome for many years. It is HUNGRY though, going through an embarrassing amount of wood every year. Hasn't been a problem, but I'm getting lazier and lazier and not wanting to keep that beast fed.... Anyhow, we now have an almost complete addition to our home that is going to bump us up to about 1100 square feet! We will finally have enough room for an indoor wood heater and I can STOP using my behemoth... I have several types of heating in my home, but I want the wood to be the prime heat source as it has been for the past few years.

So, our new addition has a clerestory wall/windows and it is 12 ft. tall, single pitch roof going down to your standard 8 ft. wall. I installed the triple wall chimney straight through the roof in the high part, so with the dropdown box, lets call it 11 ft. to the floor with 6 ft. on top of that. I do have another 4 ft. section of triple wall if I need to add it for possible draft issues. My triple wall is 8 inch interior diameter, I used it because it was free. My thoughts are to put a 6 inch single wall stove pipe from whatever stove I get and just go all the way up through the 8 inch with it, making it 4 wall pipe.

Anyhow, I have been REALLY busy all year and didn't get any wood put away... Hasn't been much of an issue with the outdoor unit, when I get too much buildup in the pipe, I just open the door, let it cook and watch the fireshow out the flue... Can't do that with an indoor stove hahaha.

I was looking at buying a fancy new stove, however reading up on them they seem to be very sensitive to fuel, so it would seem like my best bet for this season is to find an affordable older stove and use it, then remove it and put in a fancy one next season when I have some decent wood to burn.

All that said, you know what I have to work with now. What is the group consensus on a decent stove to use for the season using suboptimal wood? Something like a Fisher? How about those cabinet style heaters? Thoughts, recommendations, curses? By the way, I live in the woods, so no real worries about bothering anyone with my burning of suboptimal wood.

To re-phrase... what would my best option be for a stove that can handle "bad" wood? I have access to one of those cheapie cabinet style stoves right now, but I'm unsure if I should get it or hold out and find something else. The only thing I'm dead-set on is to not run a boxwood stove in my house, I bought one for my shop and immediately gave it away haha.... those things are pretty much full blast till they're empty.
 
Putting single wall pipe inside the 8 is not going to keep the inner "flue" pipe hot. You need a 6 inch chimney first. This is more important than the stove you choose.

If you have been burning less than seasoned wood, that is one cause of going through so much. A LOT of heat is used (wasted) to be able to burn any wood with higher moisture content.

I'd go for a Mama Bear. You will notice in the manuals they do not recommend an air circulation type chimney. That is what you would be building with the 6 inside 8. They cool too rapidly, decreasing draft and use more fuel.
 
I'd like to know more about what was installed for the triple wall chimney. There are various kinds, some insulated class A and other only air circulation cooled. Do you know the brand of chimney that was installed? Did the chimney have a solid insulation jacket inside? Pictures are always welcome.
 
I would love to find a fisher, been keeping my eyes out for one for sure! I hope to be living in the addition by christmas, and as of now I can still make some changes if need be, that's why I thought to go ahead and join the forum so I could ask some questions.... So you're saying that putting a 6 inch stovepipe through the 8 inch chimney is a bad idea?
 
I get what you're saying now... Would I be better off to go on and rip out what I have, and put in something better or do you think I could possibly backfill with vermiculite or something similar?
 
Well, first of all welcome. Sorry that you've already installed the chimney pipe. It is not for wood stoves because it has a lower temperature rating. For a woodstove you need class A chimney rated at 2100::F. Ideally the chimney would have been 6" because this is what any new stove sized for this space would require. Yes, take it out and put in the right stuff. A chimney can get very hot.
 
either way, I'm glad I caught this now.... thank you :) Since I'm building this addition, I have the chance to make it just right, so....... now moving on to "fixing it" phase.... Since I already have a 17.5 inch hole in my roof all sealed/flashed/caulked in place, it would seem like my next reasonable course of action would be to take out the inner stainless 8 inch liner and run a Class A 6 inch chimney inside of this existing monstrosity... Does that sound reasonable?
 
You may have something for a fireplace.

Lowe's has good chimney. It is a double wall "pack" type. Home Depot carries Dura-Vent which is lighter weight but larger outside diameter. They are both insulated and nothing wrong with them.
 
wyndsurfr said:
can you tell me what it was intended for? some massive gas furnace? It looks just like the stuff they sell at lowes, but I fully understand lowes is lowes....
Click to expand...
It's typically used for older zero-clearance fireplaces.
 
awesome, thank you... Looks like i have some metal-fab work tomorrow hehe... glad I posted here, you guys at the very least saved some threads with me whining about why it doesn't work right.... I think I can make this all work together, I'll just have a quintuple wall chimney... I really don't want to think about trying to make that big hole I cut in the roof deck smaller :)
 
SO.... do you fellas think that about 6 feet of that stuff (inside of the shell of that 8 inch junk I installed already), plus about 8 feet of pipe inside the house would be enough for a modern stove install later on? or to be safe, should I go on and install more of that "good stuff" on top now like 9 feet of the "good stuff" outside? I'm assuming whatever stove I install will have a 2.5-3 ft. height. That's where I'm getting the 8 ft. inside figure from....
 
wyndsurfr said:
I really don't want to think about trying to make that big hole I cut in the roof deck smaller :)
Click to expand...
That would be the right way to do it unfortunately. This is permanent infrastructure. Is the roofing already on? How is the chimney pipe going to be supported?
 
I'm a metal fabricator, I am sure I can make it all good and supported... we will just pretend that big 17 inch pipe coming through the roof is my chimney and I'm lining it with supervent pipe :)
 
also, I totally get it now... a fireplace won't generate nearly the heat of an out of control wood stove.... About 4 times a year I help my buddy fire his wood fired pottery kiln, takes about 30 hours to get there, but we hit 2300-2400 degrees in a kiln that holds nearly a thousand pots.... that's alot of mass to heat up, so I guess a really good and out of control heater could conceivably hit that with a big load of wood in it.
 
We can only instruct on the right way to do this especially when safety is concerned. The chimney needs proper support. It also needs proper sealing outside from rain. Otherwise it will be a constant nuisance.
 
wyndsurfr said:
so I guess a really good and out of control heater could conceivably hit that with a big load of wood in it.
Click to expand...

Nah, it will max out around 1,425 degrees. Don't ask how I know.
 
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Brotherbart... my wife had a BAD habit of opening the ash drawer on my big outdoor unit to make our wet wood burn, problem was, she would forget about it being open and keep feeding it while I was gone... She burned up 5/8 rebar in that critter in one day! good thing my welds held!
 
Good thing my living room held. Stove had popped a weld in the back that I couldn't see.
 
wyndsurfr said:
it'll be good, I promise :) SHouldn't be any problem with putting duravent inside of the existing thing correct? as long as it is supported well....
Click to expand...
It would be a big problem with DuraPlus - that is 10"OD. The SuperVent sold by Lowes is 8" OD but I still don't think it's going to work because the dimensions are the same.
 
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