Reality Check Woodstove & Chimney Installation

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> I still haven't heard a practical reason this matters

Newbie myself here on the forum, though I have been wood heating about 25 years. , There are topics on that here. Two good reasons:

1) embers and smoke go up and away instead of being blown down onto the roof. I have noticed the longer an ember falls, the more likely it will be extinguished when landing on a surface.

2) you get outside the envelope-vacuum all structures have, so, you are not sucking the exhausted fumes back into the house. This is how people kill themselves with ICE generators.

Then there is the draft aspect and back draft.
 
I wanted to post back here to say thanks for all your input and show you how we fixed the installation. Though I didn't follow every recommendation made here, I'm satisfied with the installation, and so is my professional chimney installer who did the above-ceiling work.

Here's the most important bit: The chimney has been rebuilt using Duratech double-wall pipe, with proper flashing tucked into a slit in the metal on the uphill side. (The weird stripe above that is a bit of leftover adhesive from the previous installer's work, which we didn't mess with lest we strip paint from the roofing material.) There's now a proper wood stove type cap as well, the previous one having been a gas vent cap (to go with my gas vent pipe, ugh).

[Hearth.com] Reality Check Woodstove & Chimney Installation

Down below, we now have a proper ceiling support box, connected to the stove with a telescoping double-wall Selkirk pipe (plus a stove adapter). The pipe is secured with screws at the top, middle, and bottom, while the adapter is just sitting over the stove opening.

[Hearth.com] Reality Check Woodstove & Chimney Installation

We ran a quick test fire through this setup, and it works beautifully. Can't wait to enjoy it all winter. Thank you all again for your help! You may have saved us from a bad fire.
 
I mean to comment earlier that looks like a fantastic stove to cook on.

The pipe being that much higher on the roof I am sure it will draft much better. I bought some pipe supports a few years ago because I was worried about height and the wind, but, really the pipe being round I would probably loose my roof before the pipe was damaged.

I am installing a new chimney and stove myself this week, though it does not have as nice of a cooking surface as yours. I guess that is a stone insert of some type?
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Maybe it is real (pig) cast iron insert? I guess you could do a magnet test. When I saw it I thought it might act as an insulator so whatever you put on it does not scorch from sitting directly on the top.

When I cook beans, I usually put a cake pan on the stove top, with a cooling rack inside that, so boil overs get caught, and then put the pot on the cooling rack. It gets to boiling soon enough without the food on the bottom getting burnt. Though cooking pizza or pancakes, the pan goes directly on the stove top.

Nice touch with the corners having arc shaped brackets so pots do not slide off. Appears to be a nice thought out stove.
 
How tall is the chimney outside? If it is 60" or higher then it needs to be braced.