need new chimney install location advice- pics included

[bhanks55]

I am looking to install a woodstove/furnace and chimney in my new house. Of course, they didn't design this house for a fireplace, so it is all retrofit. The house is quite large and is essentially 3 stories with the appliance in the basement. The local installer when out for maintenance on the propane fireplace said the "easiest" thing would be to install an outside metal pipe. From what I understand this is "convenient" but NOT the way to go. Primarily due to the high likelihood of a significant stack effect in this house and cold backdraft conditions being almost a certainty. If I am wrong, please correct me.

To that end, I was trying to think of a way to bring the pipe UP THROUGH the living space.
I attached a picture. The most "ideal" location to not be intrusive on the space at least, is up through the fireplace box on the left of the picture. However, im concerned this still may not be high enough in the heated portion of the house to avoid cold backdraft. It is still ~10ft higher to the highest portion of the ceiling.



I know there are "rules" for elevations and heights of the chimneys outside the roof, my concern is my understanding is I would have to get the top of the chimney pipe outside above the highest point inside the "heated envelope" to prevent backdraft, and that would be a lot of pipe (that may be prone to backdraft just due to the fact it presents a lot pipe that is exposed to exterior cooling).

What do you guys think?

What is the likelihood that a chimney installed in the lower portion of the room (left) would function appropriately and if so, what are the specifications I need to follow???...

 

[begreen]

The stack effect will be present whether the chimney is interior or exterior. Basements are often negative pressure zones, especially if there are competing appliances like furnaces, gas or oil hw heaters, clothes dryers down there too. An interior chimney will help, but if at all possible, your success rate will go up significantly by putting the stove on the first floor.

 

[Poindexter]

Are you living in, planning to spend time in the basement level, or is that just where the appliance is now? What heating appliance is the primary furnace now?

 

[bhanks55]

The basement is finished and a part of living space. It is quite large and is a walkout so has easy access to place to put firewood and contain mess downstairs. I was going to get a furnace But have one outlet dump into large living space downstairs and the other piped to second floor . Heat would travel to bedrooms on third passively. This is not the primary heat source more for supplemental or emergency. Primary is currently all propane.

I am considering removing the propane insert upstairs in the pic and putting a woodstove there. It would be much more involved and the mess would be right in the middle of things . Btw I have a 6mon old , 2 yr old, and a 5 yr old so they are part of the decision making.

Would a woodstove draft correctly in the area described? Or would the high adjacent ceilings still cause issues?

 

[Poindexter]

Well, look at the big picture a minute. You got three kids, a full time job, and a wife.

Do you want to make wood your primary heat, or do you just want to lower your propane bill by burning as much wood as your other responsibilities will let you get away with?

If you want to go to wood as primary it's a huge time commitment. Your pass/fail grade every winter is do you need a plumber to fix your frozen pipes.

Probably you want to supplement. Where do you and your family spend the most time? Walkout basement or ground floor? Where is the TV? Where is the dining table?

 

[bhanks55]

I've definitely cut wood as primary before, did last year when I had a beastly owb at my other house. This is a new place. Essentially I plan to use propane as primary if it stays cheaper, want the capability to greatly reduce or replace if need be. Say even scenarios like the you know what hits the fan or out of power for a week or so. I live pretty far out and this while unlikely could happen. I'm not expecting a perfect/uniform heat like something connected to all the ducts in my house, but I do want a reasonable capability if needed.
I will be putting some form of wood burning appliance in, just need to make it work properly and make "sense"

 

[bhanks55]

We live mostly on the second floor. Where the picture was taken.

 

[Poindexter]

Ok, I am signing off soon, but there is a gang of questions that will set up who ever comes along next to carry on.

What do you do with the walkout basement? Mostly kiddos playroom?

About when was the house built, and about how many sqft on each level?

How much was the propane bill for the last 12 months?

How much property do you have? Have you got room to season 50 cords, or is finding room to stack three cords seasoned going to be a problem?

Pencil sketch of the ground floor/ primary living area with stairwell(s) leading to upstairs bedrooms?

Do you own a generator already? Chainsaw? Splitter?

I am guessing, but I suspect you might could leave the gas fireplace in rather than pay to have it removed and find some other suitable place for a decent woodstove that can heat both the ground floor and the bedrooms, essentially cutting your propane use by 2/3s. If you let the kids basically run wild in the walkout basement and only heat it to +06 to 65dF or so they'll burn off even more energy while they are down there running in circles and screaming their heads off.

Your OWB experience suggests handling a few cords of cord wood is a quantity you understand pretty well. Depending on the price of propane and how much you pay for cordwood and how much of it you burn your break even for a complete fresh install is probably going to be 2-3 years, but you will likely heat the house much warmer with wood than you would ever dream of if you were burning propane alone.

Depending on your sqft you might put a pellet in the basement to take the edge off and run perhaps a slightly smaller cord wood stove on the main level. A pellet stove can (prevailing wind?) do OK vented through a wall with hardly any stack on it at all.

Best wishes.

 

[bhanks55]

I did some figuring, and bargaining with the Mrs... and think I have two locations that could work. I have placed a red line is the location the chimney would exit. The one in the center of the house and exiting higher of course would be the ideal one for heat and flue. Of course it would be right next to our staircase and take up some valued space (plus have lots of carpet nearby). My wife wants to buy a stove like an ideal steel that has a cook surface on it and doesn't mind it being in the kitchen. The location for the chimney there would be in the pic where the bay window juts out. From the pics you can get a feel for how large and shape the house is too. I didn't get a chance to sketch, but there is ~2000sqft in the basement and the main level EACH and another 700 in the bedrooms upstairs. The main and upstairs has a VERY open floor plan with only doors to the bedrooms themselves.
The area in the kitchen is preferred IF it would draft better because the area is extensively tiled, right next to porch for small wood storage, etc.

 

[bhanks55]

I forgot to mention I have 3 chainsaws and access to a wood splitter and my newly to be best buddy neighbor has a skid steer automatic woodsplitter....it is a thing of beauty....

 

[begreen]

Should be ok. A sketch of the floorplan showing stove location options would be helpful for confirmation. Include where the staircase is too.

 

[bhanks55]

Sorry,the pic appears darker and rotated when I attached. I will add a sketch tomorrow. I'm standing on third floor in the middle of the house looking back toward the kitchen where I had suggested the stove go. Really the only place in the living room it can go is at the corner where the top of stairway meets the wall out of sight in this pic.

 

[Poindexter]

So 4700sqft, total, about? Your not heating all that with one stove I don't think.

 

[bhanks55]

Yeah. Kind of why I was looking into something like a Kuuma 100 or furnace in the basement initially. 150k output seemed more likely to be able to warm most of house. However things changed and I had to rethink that plan.

Again, I'm not expecting it to keep the whole house roasty toasty just yet. Especially moving it upstairs the downstairs may get darn cold. But the 2700 upstairs Is the primary concern. I like the bedrooms cooler anyway so when it gets down too it the main living spaces are the concern and that is where the stove would be.

Im pretty certain I will have to put a pellet later downstairs when money is available. The kids can put on a jacket for now. Again, just supplementing for now.

 

[bhanks55]

ok. I uploaded a REALLY rough sketch, sorry im not good at this and a picture from where the stove would sit in the kitchen. Of course you can tell the kids are up this morning. LOL. In the pic you can see how open the area is and also get a feel for the stairs better. I just realized I cut off my identification for the stove (box in the kitchen) when the picture was taken. But that is what that is.

A lot of the downstairs is storage or play area. especially in the winter. In the summer we spend more time there because it conserves energy. An attic fan in the upstairs is also in the works for warmer temps as well.

 

[northwinds]

I think you'll get better heat upstairs if the wood stove is in the living room. The kitchen is going to get some heat from cooking on the regular kitchen stove in the winter The wood stove on top of that might be a bit much. I like the idea of a pellet stove in the walkout basement.

 

[xman23]

As said your not going to heat the whole place with one stove. I'd put the stove in the most open central located room on the second level you live in most. If the floor plan is open with cathedral ceilings there is not much difference with the location being on one side or the other side of the room. It will become the focal point as there is a beautiful rolling fire. So make it easily seen from the rooms your in most. I was never able the cook anything on or in the stove. I think the heat is not controlled enough to do this, so I wouldn't count on this being any benefit. Other may say different. Our stove heats perfectly the open floor plan, main great room and the third level loft bed room. The back bedrooms on the main level are about 5- 8 degrees colder. The out of ground basement gets no heat from the stove.

 

[bhanks55]

Thanks guys . I think we have the answer. I wish the larger furnace downstairs piped to mid-level (for example drolet tundra, chimney would vent properly but looks like I'm gonna have to split it up get to work. I may have been just trying to do too much with one appliance. It would be the "most convenient" for me and be most likely to heat as much of the house as possible with one unit. After all the discussion on stove location I found a way to put it in the basement and run the chimney straight up to the very top of the heat envelope but what I'm gathering is it still going to have problems with Backdraft? Just have to ask to put that out of my mind permanently.

 

[northwinds]

I've heated two homes with walkout basements without having trouble with backdraft. Both were inside the heat envelope. What length will the chimney be? If it's straight up three stories, it's going to draft pretty hard once the draft is established.

 

[bhanks55]

Yes. Straight up three stories

 

[bhanks55]

Northwinds just to clarify,what do you mean by when draft is established? I'm sure it'll be fine when I fire is going to my main concern is as the fire goes out in May pull smoke back into the house. Or lead to "cold basement/hearth syndrome"... Do you mean by establish it mean have enough Windcurrent etc to create a draw in excess of the stack effect of the house? Or be reliant on a fire?

 

[begreen]

It looks like you can heat the main floor and upstairs nicely with that stove location. It's nice and central. Tell us more about your basement furnace hopes. Some work ok. It may require its own OAK if this is a negative pressure zone. Another issue is the mess and weight providing fuel for the furnace. Is there a basement entrance to bring the wood directly to the furnace?

Is the Tundra sized properly for the house? What is the current furnace's output BTU rating?

 

[northwinds]

Northwinds just to clarify,what do you mean by when draft is established? I'm sure it'll be fine when I fire is going to my main concern is as the fire goes out in May pull smoke back into the house. Or lead to "cold basement/hearth syndrome"... Do you mean by establish it mean have enough Windcurrent etc to create a draw in excess of the stack effect of the house? Or be reliant on a fire?

The last couple of posts leave me a bit confused. Are you planning on putting a wood stove in the basement or a wood furnace?

In any event, the backdraft issue does occur with a cold stove. Backdraft is an issue with too little draft or draft in the wrong direction. I've never had that issue with my walkout basements, which have both included full sliding glass windows and other full windows. A walkout basement or hillside ranch is really a different animal than a traditional full basement. In many ways, it's more like a house on a slab-- with one full basement wall and two partial concrete walls.

Some people have overdraft issues (too much draft) with really long straight chimneys. With 3 stories, I'm just wondering if your chimney is going to be 25 feet, 30 feet, or higher.

 

[bhanks55]

See the pics up in the post of the back of the house and you can see the entrance to the walkout. The chimney would be in the same location as what is noted on the straight on rear shot. It would be a tall sucker. Your confused because we've discussed several options. The most likely will be two stoves. One pellet in basement and one regular on main level.

The furnace was what I initially was hoping to put in because i have a walkout handling the wood and wood storage there would be seamless. But I was worried the draft would be an issue. The guys on this forum confirmed this could happen and we started talking stoves on main level. That ended up making me rethink where I could put chimneys.

Lim

 

[northwinds]

Got it. Sounds like a good plan.

So the chimney will just be going up two stories if the wood stove is on the main floor.