New Guy

[ctluba]

Hello all,

I am a new guy here and have a few basic questions. I am not brand new to wood burning. My dad ran a stove all of my life. I am thinkung about putting a small stove in my living room to help cut down on the friggin oil bill. Plus I just love the heat from a stove!!

So here is my set up. I have a pre-fab type fire place with a pipe chimney. I really hate it. Just have a few decorative fires during the holidays. My plan is to place the small wood stove on a hearth in front of the cheapo fire place and conect the stove pipe to the fire place flu. I am aware that I will have to tear out the old flu pipe and have double walled stove pipe installed correct?? This sort of baffles me because I though the fire place sends higher temps up the chimney than the stove will.

So is this plan do-able?? Any hidden issues??What is a ball park price to install the double walled pipe (I would have to have it professionally done as I dont want to burn my house down)??

Also, I bought a little stove and it is not air tight. I would like to make it air tight so I dont get smoke in the house when first lighting the fire. I think if the stove is drafting properly it doesnt really have to be airtight right?? What could I use to seal it up?? Stove cement?? Caulking of some type??

I also have a good supply of wood on my property. I have about one cord of seasoned wood and two cords of green wood split and stacked under cover.

Thanx

Couple of little stoves I bought to refurb.



This is the ugly fireplace

 

[begreen]

Welcome. I'm sorry you didn't come here first before buying the stove. I think you would have an easier time getting an epa stove with a rear-exit and putting a liner up the current chimney. If you didn't pay too much I would sell the stove(s).

 

[Bigfoot]

doable but not likely. Sorry to make it short but begreen has a point. WELCOME, yes look for a used epa stove. The one you have is cool but may not be safe in the house. Could be safe but all depends.....
Here we crank our open fireplace, it cooks once the coals build up...

 

[ctluba]

Thanx guys. I paid very little for both stoves. Sorta to spend some time in the garage with a project and maybe use or sell them. So I dont have much into them at all, about $100 total. What do you mean EPA?? I dont want a fancy high priced stove. I want to have a very low start up cost so that I can realize some savings by the second year. I figure the first year will be a wash.

They have some small stoves at tractor supply for 200 or 300. Are those EPA?? And begreen, you mentioned "a liner up the chimmney". Is that the same as "double walled pipe"?? What is a ball park price?? If there is some type of liner that can be installed in the current the flu, that sounds way easier of a job than pulling out the old flu.

I was figuring a few hundred for the stove, they have inexpensive pads at tractor supply for 50 to 100 bucks and maybe a grand to do the chimney, so maybe $1,500 to get going???

 

[Ashful]

What they're referring to is a stove with a secondary burn system. Old (often called pre-EPA) stoves just burned the wood, and sent the smoke up the chimney. It got the job done, but tended to create a lot of creosote problems in the chimney, when folks would choke their stoves down low for a long burn time. The fact that so many burned wood that was at moisture content > 20% didn't help, but this was not the sole factor.

Around 1990, the EPA enacted new standards, to limit the amount of particulate emissions from wood stoves. This created all sorts of problems for manufacturers and users, as both sides battled with the learning curve of building and burning stoves with secondary burn systems. These systems mix fresh air (often pre-heated) with the exhaust air of the stove, in some sort of system that allows the exhaust to "reburn". This provides more heat (rather than sending good, unburned fuel up the flue), better overall efficiency, and less particulates going thru your chimney. These systems, within reason, finally allow the user to burn very low and slow, without making a creosote factory out of their chimney.

There are a few types of reburn systems, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. They are broken into two basic categories:

non-catalytic: Mixes pre-heated air with the exhaust in reburn tubes, chamber, or baffle, at temperatures above 1100F to burn the gasses and particulates in the exhaust air. These systems are typically seen as simpler and less expensive to purchase to operate, but slightly less efficient, and are limited in how low and slow they can burn.

catalytic: Mixes fresh air with the exhaust in a catalytic combuster, which like any catalyst, permits the same reaction to occur at lower energy. These have the advantage of reburning the exhaust at temperatures as low as 500F, enabling the user to operate the stove at a much lower burn rate, but they are typically more expensive to purchase and operate.

There is a new class of stoves, hybrids, which combine both techniques of secondary burn. These are fairly expensive stoves, such as the Woodstock Progress Hybrid and Lopi Cape Cod.

 

[ctluba]

Thank you for the info. Here is a little more info of how my house is set up.

The chimmney is not masonary. It is a wood frame that has three flu going up. One flu is for the furnace. One flu is for the fire place and one flu is not used. Here is how it looks.



Here is a photo of where the unused flu comes into the cellar. Is this a double walled stove pipe?? You can clearly see that there is an inner and out outer pipe. Maybe I am all set up to put a stove in the basement?? I really wanted one in the living area, but if I am all set to just install in the cellar, I may just go that route. Thanx again for all the input guys.

 

[Ashful]

Well, if the tube is there, and running thru a location that's acceptable on the first floor, I see no reason you couldn't thimble into it there, and just remove the lower portion. Might mean a few days extra work, but this is a long-term investment.

 

[ctluba]

But do you think the pipe in the picture is a double walled pipe acceptable for use with wood stove? The pic appears to be a double wall design, but I dont see any insulation in the space between the inner and outer pipe. Again, I dont know what double insulated pipe is supposed to look like, figured someone could tell from the pic.

Thanx

 

[Ashful]

I'll leave that for one of the guys who knows more about pipe than me. In fact, you may want to start a new thread with double-wall pipe in the title, for a more targeted response on this. There are some folks here who really know chimney pipe, but they don't read every thread / might not check a thread titled "new guy".

Good luck!

 

[ctluba]

Good Idea, thanx

 

[begreen]

No, that is air cooled pipe. It is not high-temp all fuel 2100 deg. pipe and not safe for use with a wood stove.

 

[ctluba]

Thanx. Maybe I will just blow a hole through the wall in the family room and run a pipe up the side of the house. It may lead to a divorce, but hey...LOL

 

[Ram 1500 with an axe...]

Thanx. Maybe I will just blow a hole through the wall in the family room and run a pipe up the side of the house. It may lead to a divorce, but hey...LOL

But hey you will be burning in no time... If u do that.....