Replacing a wood stove with a pellet stove. Chimney advice

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ToddPost

Member
Dec 4, 2017
6
Bear Valley Springs, Ca
We just moved in to our new home in July. It has a old 80's era catalytic wood stove. I want to replace it with a pellet stove. The wood stove is piped with 10" chimney pipe. I'm pretty sure its single wall. Do I need to do double wall pipe all the way up through box at the top of the ceiling? I want to do it correct and safe. I have 17' cathedral ceilings in my great room. It would be $$ if I need to do double wall all the way but if that is the answer then I have to. There is a 10" to 8" reducer on top of the stove and I know Duravent sells 8" to 4" reducer. I was told I should use 4" pipe since our elevation here is 4500ft. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Todd
 

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The pellet stove you pick will dictate your vent requirements. But most will require a liner.
 
I'd be really surprised if that is single wall pipe that exists there now at 10". It seems more likely it would be an inner pipe of either 6 or 8", either double or triple wall all together. If so you can probably use that pipe. Sometimes you can run a 4" liner through existing wood stove venting as well. It just depends on the install instructions for the specific stove you buy.

Pellet vent is under positive pressure is what the fuss is about. Wood stove venting is negative pressure.. FWIW I ran 30ft of seamless flex vent up an existing masonry chimney. That's pretty standard when installing with a fireplace and using the old chimney. Also with pellet venting all seams have to be sealed with RTV or silicone tape unless it's self sealing venting..
 
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For best results you should come off the back of the stove with 3 to 4 adapter T. I also believe the chimney is eight inch. Do I think the chimney will vent if you just go with an 8 to 4 adapter? It might. Butt you'd be better off and following the manufacturers recommendation by putting a 4 inch liner down the existing chimney pipe.
 
WOW. There's this massive pipe in your great room! Have you thought about, maybe, perhaps placing the stove in a different location?
 
You won't see the big pipe in the room. The reducer will only need 3 inches of the large pipe to connect to.

Yea, but you'd still have a pipe in your room. If the home owner is fine with it, that's cool. If I had a view like that, I don't think I'd want a pipe in front of it.