I have a Fire Chief 700 wood furnace in the basement. Chimney is structural containing concrete block and tile ( about 7"X11") it is 33 feet tall with the top 20 feet exposed on all sides. Been burning for 35 plus years. Always had creosote/ drafting problems as the season progressed. Had a flexible stainless liner installed 11 years ago. It was not a easy installation and the liner had to be ovalized to get it down. Still having late season drafting and creosote problems. Thinking about having tile broken out and replacing with some kind of pipe. Recommendations?
Replacing tile and liner
- Thread starter jet1xx
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Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
I wouldn't guess going from a liner to a pipe would change much unless its a non insulated liner and you go to double wall or something insulated. How dry is your wood and do you burn hot or a lot of low and slow?
But what moisture content is the wood at? Yes breaking out the tile and installing a heavy wall insulated liner will help. But it's a fire chief. A mid season cleaning may be needed regardless of the liner.
I do not know what the moisture content is, but I know what good seasoned hardwood is. Why is a fire chief bad?
I know it's seasoned because I've been downing bucking and splitting my own furnace and fireplace wood for over 50 years. What is wrong with a Fire Chief furnace?
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
Some folks have been burning wet wood for 50 years. @bholler who is one of the more knowledgeable folks here is just being thorough. If your wood is sub optimal you could fix that before diving into a new liner.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
This ^ ^ ^ especially if the wood is not very dry..."seasoned" means nothing...cut/split/stacked/top covered (with open sides) for 2-3 yrs would do it.
Even with dry wood I'd bet that chimney would need a mid season cleaning running a FC700 (not that they are "bad" per say, just old school "fire in a steel box" technology...which equals dirty)
gruesome
New Member
Is the creosote causing drafting problems, or is the drafting problem there even immediately after a cleaning? If you are not totally allergic to math, you could calculate the creosote thickness from the creosote volume obtained in the cleaning, divided by chimney length times chimney pipe circumference. Maybe you just need to clean more than once per heating season, as posted above.
Huh, assuming the creosote is distributed evenly is the best case scenario.
Having one air leak or colder spot creates accumulations that'll block the flue long before an even thickness layer would significant affect the flow...
Having one air leak or colder spot creates accumulations that'll block the flue long before an even thickness layer would significant affect the flow...
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
My experience has been that creosote gets ground up and "condensed" when its scraped/ground off, so I doubt that math would be accurate...plus, like was mentioned, creosote tends to build up in cold spots, rather than evenly.
It could be something like the bottom of the T wasn’t capped too.
Regardless, it seems the liner is cooling off too much, allowing condensation and creosote build up. The easiest, and least expensive ways to deal with the buildup, is to reduce as much water as you can in the fuel, and to make sure you’re burning hot enough. You’ll always get some water through the burning of the wood, but you want as little as possible.
Or you can throw thousands of dollars at it with a new liner, and maybe not fix it.
Checking the moisture content is the easiest of the 2. It takes a $20 tool and since it’s warm now, you just need to split a split and test with the grain in the middle. If you find it’s not below 20%, you can easily process more to get ahead and allow more drying time.
Running hotter, so your exhaust gasses stay hot enough to keep the moisture from condensing will also help keep it clean.
After those 2, relatively free, things are tried, you can determine if it’s best to upgrade the liner, or the Fire Chief. No matter the liner, the Fire Chief is going to put out more particles that can attach to condensation on the liner than a more modern stove. A cleaner burning stove will also burn less fuel for the amount of wood put in. This could leave you with a warmer house burning the same amount of fuel, or the same temperature house while burning less fuel. But these are all decisions for you to make.
Regardless, it seems the liner is cooling off too much, allowing condensation and creosote build up. The easiest, and least expensive ways to deal with the buildup, is to reduce as much water as you can in the fuel, and to make sure you’re burning hot enough. You’ll always get some water through the burning of the wood, but you want as little as possible.
Or you can throw thousands of dollars at it with a new liner, and maybe not fix it.
Checking the moisture content is the easiest of the 2. It takes a $20 tool and since it’s warm now, you just need to split a split and test with the grain in the middle. If you find it’s not below 20%, you can easily process more to get ahead and allow more drying time.
Running hotter, so your exhaust gasses stay hot enough to keep the moisture from condensing will also help keep it clean.
After those 2, relatively free, things are tried, you can determine if it’s best to upgrade the liner, or the Fire Chief. No matter the liner, the Fire Chief is going to put out more particles that can attach to condensation on the liner than a more modern stove. A cleaner burning stove will also burn less fuel for the amount of wood put in. This could leave you with a warmer house burning the same amount of fuel, or the same temperature house while burning less fuel. But these are all decisions for you to make.
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
That looks like maple; those pins should be far in there, not just tickling the surface.
That'll increase the reading.
And did you split that one right before measuring? It doesn't look like it.
Wood dried from the outside inward so you want to measure in the center of a freshly split/exposed surface.
That'll increase the reading.
And did you split that one right before measuring? It doesn't look like it.
Wood dried from the outside inward so you want to measure in the center of a freshly split/exposed surface.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
Find a straight grained split, resplit it, then sink the tester pins in several spots in the middle of a fresh face, parrellel to the grain is best...that should give you a fairly accurate reading...do several splits from different parts of the pile, different species if possible (oak tends to dry slow!)
Wisco Shepherd
Minister of Fire
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