Out and up, or in and up?

[Pagey]

Hey, all. Been lurking for the better part of a week, but decided to register tonight and get some insight. I live in Middle Tennessee, and I am considering wood heat this year or next. I grew up with wood heat, and my grandmother with whom I visit daily uses wood heat, and I certainly miss it. Both she and mom and dad still user old Fisher step stoves, so the new EPA certified boxes are certainly new to us. Today dad and I visited a local dealer and looked at the Lopi Liberty. I was impressed with the secondary combustion and the lack of smoke.

Please look at my home and tell me what you think is best: to go out and up, or to go straight up through a living space. From what I've read, I am under the impression that keeping as much of the flue inside as possible will yield a greater draft. My concerns are twofold: the height at the peak of my roof is 22', so I worry about cool air causing condensation and thus creosote. Second, I worry that the tree line just behind the house will interfere with a draft. That tree line is the north side of the house, and most of our weather (and thus wind) comes from the west.

I look forward to your insight and experience. Thanks in advance.

 

[Hogwildz]

Personally, I'd go staright up and keep as much inside as possible.
I have 27 foot of liner and no creosote problems.
With the height, you should have no problems with draft, trees or no trees. Especially in winter when there is no leaves on the trees.

 

[crazy_dan]

I second strait up as it is always better.
Did you know that you have ghosts looking out your windows?

 

[Pagey]

I should mention this: my main concern with going up through the floor and then up the attic is that nothing in this house lines up very well. It sat as a shell/frame for about three years before my wife and her parents bought it from her uncle and finished it. Long story, but that was before I knew her, etc. In any event, my concern is coming up through the floor and finding the joists there don't align with the rafters, etc. I hate to cut joists, really.

In your (plural) opinion, if I were "forced" to take it out and up due to the issues above, do you think I'd have any issues with a Lopi Endeavor?

Again, many thanks for the insight.

 

[fossil]

When we're looking at the pictures of your house, where is the stove to be located? First floor, centerline, back to the wall we're looking at, centered under the peak of the highest part of the roof, or what? Inside, straight-up is ideal...but lots of installations are done differently and work just fine. Rick

 

[skinnykid]

If you go out and up, you will have less chance of leaks than if you went through the roof. My house is out and up and I wondered why they didn't go straight up. My bro-in-law who owns a carpentry business says it is probably better off that they didn't. But this is New England so who knows what kind of Ice, snow, rain we will get at any given time.

 

[Hogwildz]

If you go out and up, you will have less chance of leaks than if you went through the roof. My house is out and up and I wondered why they didn't go straight up. My bro-in-law who owns a carpentry business says it is probably better off that they didn't. But this is New England so who knows what kind of Ice, snow, rain we will get at any given time.

Almost every home has roof penetrations of one sort or another. As in any, if its flashed right it should never leak.

 

[Corey]

If it were mine, I'd probably go straight up. You get a slight bonus of stove-to-ceiling flue pipe (thus heat) in the stove room, and a better looking install than having 20' of stove pipe strapped to the side of the house. IMHO. If the clearances are acceptable, you could use single wall black pipe for that which would save a bit over triple wall that you would have to run for the entire length of the exterior flue. I would think any properly installed flue would be leak free, so going through the roof is largely a non issue.

 

[Hogwildz]

I noticed in the photos you have a soffit overhang that goes around the home. Have you taken into consideration that you will have to either cut the soffit & roof out and box it to run the pipe outside, or have some serious braces holding the pipe away or a couple elbows to maintain clearances. Do yourself a favor, go straight up. Before jumping in, find a clear shot straight up if possible. If not go up inside and use a couple elbows inside.

 

[Pagey]

If you look at the pic of the back of the house, the pipe would come out about 2.5 to 3 ft to the right (in the pic) of the small window.

 

[fossil]

If you were to decide to run it outside, you could enclose the whole thing in a nicely sided chase to match the house, and it could be made to look like it belonged there. If you were to decide to run it straight up & out the roof, any competent installer's gonna do that in such a way that there will be no leakage whatsoever...as previously stated, it's done routinely in home construction, and anyone who doesn't know how to do that properly has no business working on your home. Rick

 

[Pagey]

I noticed in the photos you have a soffit overhang that goes around the home. Have you taken into consideration that you will have to either cut the soffit & roof out and box it to run the pipe outside, or have some serious braces holding the pipe away or a couple elbows to maintain clearances. Do yourself a favor, go straight up. Before jumping in, find a clear shot straight up if possible. If not go up inside and use a couple elbows inside.

Yes, this is something we have considered. I would be sooo much better off with only one floor, but such is life. Thank you for pointing this out, though.

 

[Pagey]

Good morning. I wanted to follow up with some interior photos to give you an idea of what I'm facing going up. The stove will be located in the corner of our 'old' living room area (we added on a new living area a couple or three years ago). This old living area, as you will see, gives access to the stairwell (about 800 sq. ft. of living space upstairs), and, in addition, it gives access to a hallway downstairs leading to the kitchen. There is also a partition open (old window space) between the new and old living room half the side of the large double windows you see in the exterior photos. This location should allow heat to circulate relatively freely downstairs (about 1,000 sq. feet).

Now, that corner in the old living room lines up (pretty closely, anyway) with a bedroom corner upstairs. If you look at the bedrom corner, the distance from the corner to that door frame is 21.5". The dealer tells me that if we go through a living space, it has to be boxed in with drywall and 2x4s, and that the pipe should be 3" from the drywall boxing it in. She recommended a 2'x2' space, but she did say that we would get by with a 20" x 20" box-in. I have no problem with boxing in that corner. Aside from the junk you see sitting in it, it's not being used.

Here's my concern, though. Nothing, and I mean nothing, in this house has been on square or done 100% right. It sat a a shell for 3 years and warped rather badly. The rafters are not engineered, I'm told (I wasn't in the picture when this house was built). If all goes as usual when we do any work on this house: the dowstairs ceiling/upstairs floor joists will probably NOT line up with the upstairs ceiling joists, which will in turn probably NOT line up with the home made rafters.

Thoughts? Pics are below.

Stove would go here:

It's a good, open room:

The bedroom corner that lines up with the living room corner:

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Either inside or outside and up will work. It might, or might not cost more to go outside. You'll have added cost of insulated pipe by going outside but not as much work cutting and finishing. Also, in your area there should be no worries about cooling and creosote. We live in Michigan and have ours running outside and up and have no problems with the creosote, plus, it is a very easy install that way. Just remember to give the horizontal section 1/4" minimum rise per foot; don't put it level. Outside also makes for easy cleaning of the chimney. Put a tee at the bottom and run the brush up from the bottom rather than down from the top.

 

[Pagey]

From memory (which isn't much), the soffit on the back is about 10". Do you think I would be better off cutting through it and going straight up, or should I elbow out around it?

 

[Bigg_Redd]

Personally, I'd go staright up and keep as much inside as possible.
I have 27 foot of liner and no creosote problems.
With the height, you should have no problems with draft, trees or no trees. Especially in winter when there is no leaves on the trees.

x2

 

[jjhof0306]

I went out and up, and it works OK, once the fire is going and the chimney is warm. That was what was best for us - the bedroom upstairs was too small to give up any square footage, and it would have broken my budget to go up throught the floor and then through the roof, add the chimney and then enclose it.

If I'm starting cold, the chimney doesnt' draw well. ONce I have it going, it works fine, and now that I'm burning pretty much around the clock, I have no problems.

It's best to go straight up if you can, though.

:coolsmile:

 

[Hogwildz]

From memory (which isn't much), the soffit on the back is about 10". Do you think I would be better off cutting through it and going straight up, or should I elbow out around it?

If you go up and out, your already using 2 elbows, to go around the soffit, now your adding 2 more. Elbows are draft inhibitors. I'd prolly go straight up and cut out & box the soffit. Better yet as suggested build an enclosed chade around it to give it a nicer finished appearance. The you just need a top on the chase and flashing around the 3 sides.

 

[Pagey]

After doing some rough measurements tonight, it appears that my lower and upper joists are going to line up relatively well after all. I'll know more tomorrow or over the weekend. Assuming they line up correctly, I'll go up through the corner of a bedroom and box in an area around 24" by 21". I'm placing a Lopi Endeavor on reserve with the dealer tomorrow before she gets her next price increase. Once things get rolling here, I will upload some pics of the install.

 

[firefighterjake]

Pagey: As mentioned there are pros and cons to both the inside and outside chimneys. In many ways I was in the same situation as you . . . homeowners that built this house did some crazy things and one of those crazy things was having the 1st floor floor joists run opposite to the 2nd floor/1st floor ceiling joists. This, combined with nearby plumbing for the heating system and the fact that running an indoor chimney would result in some loss of space in the room above the stove caused us to go with an outside chimney.

There are some advantages and disadvantages. On the negative side, creosote build-up, loss of the additional heat from the pipe and problems with draft can result from an outside chimney. I haven't gone an entire winter yet, but so far I am pleased to note that draft has not been an issue (25 foot chimney) in "warm" (50 degrees) or cold (in the 20s), sweeping my chimney after a month resulted in 1/3-1/2 cup of dry, "crunchy" creosote (and this is after I caught my wife burning several pieces of sopping (and I do mean sopping) wet pieces of punky wood in the stove) . . . as far as the lost heat . . . to date I've been keeping the second floor and most of the rest of the house quite comfortable at 72 degrees without taxing the stove and on more than a few occasions the room with the stove gets to be a bit too warm.

Trees shouldn't be an issue . . . as someone mentioned the leaves will disappear and draft maintaining a draft shouldn't be a problem with an indoor or outdoor chimney.

Sounds as though you're going for an indoor set-up at this time . . . which honestly would have been my first choice as well . . . but if need be, you should be aware that the outdoor set-up can work well too . . . although as mentioned there are some drawbacks (cost of the chimney being one aspect) . . . and of course there are benefits . . . such as being able to very easily sweep the chimney outside from the ground.

 

[oconnor]

From memory (which isn't much), the soffit on the back is about 10". Do you think I would be better off cutting through it and going straight up, or should I elbow out around it?

Some manufacturers (may be all, but I haven't read them all ) do not permit elbows on an external flue - check with the manufacturer of the system you install. I would avoid the elbows and cut thru the overhang - a straight flu will be easier to clean.

 

[Jags]

After doing some rough measurements tonight, it appears that my lower and upper joists are going to line up relatively well after all. I'll know more tomorrow or over the weekend. Assuming they line up correctly, I'll go up through the corner of a bedroom and box in an area around 24" by 21". I'm placing a Lopi Endeavor on reserve with the dealer tomorrow before she gets her next price increase. Once things get rolling here, I will upload some pics of the install.

Yes, Yes. Straight up if you can. Good call.

 

[Pagey]

Hopefully tonight or tomorrow night I'll have more exact measurements, but from what my father-in-law (he helped do some of the finish work on that portion of the house) and I looked at last night, the joists are going to line up pretty close. It's fortunate that the corners of the living room and bedroom work out like they do. I can afford to give up that bedroom corner, and this will put the stove close to my stairwell. I want as much of that heat to get upstairs as I can, as the kids' bedrooms are down the hall on the far end. Not that experiencing a little freezing weather first hand doesn't develop some character... ;-)

My dad is installing a Lopi Liberty in his mom's house tonight, so I am excited! She's been using a Fisher step stove since the mid to late 70s. Once the Liberty is broken in nicely and everyone has learned how to do a proper burn, we hope this will take care of her having to get up during the night to tend the fire.

Right now I'm flip flopping between letting the dealer handle the installation or trying to get someone in the family with the requisite carpentry skills to do it. I'm personally going to sleep better at night knowing certified installers did the work. To me, some things are worth paying for. However, I do realize that this belief/attitude will probably leave me broke the rest of my life. But hey, you can't take it with you, right?

 

[Jags]

Go with whatever gives you the warm and fuzzy feeling that it has been installed properly. You will sleep better at night.

 

[drdoct]

Just be prepared after they come out and give you the estimate because they'll be taking it with them instead of you taking it with you. ;-)