Stove limitations to Gooserider

[elkimmeg]

Goose I have a similar setup when I replaced my stove I needed a rear discharge and lesst than 27" to the top of my outlet

This will eliminate all top exiting stoves. The one stove that comes to mind that will work is the VC Resolute Acclaim or Intrepid
there may be a Jotul or two purchased with the short leg option. But that's about it.

Originally I purchased the Resolute Acclaim but found out that the Encore will also work I sold the acclaim and picked up a used good condition Encore that is burning as I type
Encore requires 27" to top of the pipe

 

[babalu87]

Somewhere Rod Serling is laughing

Morso
/Obligatory

 

[Roospike]

Was this suppose to be a PM and not a thread ?

 

[elkimmeg]

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/4188/

Goose had a situation where he is trying to match up to an existing flue inlet.
I thought a new thread would help him out in finding stoves that might work.
I hoped other recomendations would follow

 

[Gooserider]

Thanks for the response Elk, I do appreciate your advice and expertise.

Aside from the height question, the Large Everburn Cast Iron VC is the first stove I've seen that I thought might be a reasonable replacement for our current primary stove. I don't want anything to do with a cat (and yes, I know your feelings about cat stoves, I've read a couple of those threads... hh: ) and want a stove with a side loading door (IMHO front doors are a PITA) that can take a nice long split so that I don't have to re-cut my entire wood supply and rebuild all my wood sheds.

It may be a bit big for us, but not overly so. The house was built ~1980 and is about 1050 sq ft on the 1st floor, with the same size basement, and about 500 sq ft on the 2nd floor. It is a contemporary "A-frame" style house that I would describe as having a very open plan for 2/3 of it, and average for the rest. The stove is at one end of the house in the full height living room (23.5' cathedral ceiling!) that takes up one third of the house, with big openings to the kitchen dining area that takes up the center third, with the main bath and two bedroom / offices in the last third. The master suite is over the kitchen and bedroom areas, but is narrower because of the roof pitch. The current stove is a pre-EPA "Pro-Former" model Z from ~1979, it does a good job on the upstairs, living room and kitchen, not so great on the back offices. The basement stays on the cool side, but is nowhere near freezing - I'd guess in the high 50's or low 60's. The specs on the Large Everburn say 1-2K sq feet, so it sounds like we are about in the middle of it's recommended range. We did just get a "Therm-guard" box that is supposed to help the heat distribution by periodically cycling the fan on the HVAC system, but I only got it installed yesterday, and can't tell how much good it's doing yet.

As I said in the other thread, the current pipe is about 21" from the center of the pipe to the hearth. The bottom brick on the chimney where the liner comes out is at 32" from the hearth. Aside from the question of monitoring flue temps, I guess it might be possible to suck the liner back up the chimney to raise it that high. It might even be possible to get it higher by removing a brick or two, I'm not sure. I was just examining the chimney more closely as I've been typing this (indeed I've been running all over the house measuring stuff...) I'm also not sure what the pipe clearance requirements are for this setup - what are the rules on red brick?

Doing a bit of copying from another thread where I described the chimney, and adding some more info - I've been looking at things more closely than I had been able to while the stove was hot... We call our setup the “brick rocket” because it looks like one! :coolsmile: In the living room it is a section of a circle, I’m guessing about a third, that fits into one corner and comes down to about 32” off the floor. There are two triangular brick “fins” that come off the chimney about 7’ up, and extend down each wall at about a 60* angle to the floor (they are about 4' wider than the curve at floor level). The hearth cuts across the corner between the fin tips.

The bottom of the round part of the chimney is supported by a couple of buttresses that come out from the wall. There are also a couple of peices of flat steel that run from the wall, across the buttresses, to within an inch or two of either side of where the liner comes out. It is an impressive structure to say the least, the mason that built it did a nice job. I can see a few cracks in some of the bricks and mortar joints, but I don't think they are more than cosmetic problems. This is in no way a "fireplace" type setup, a stove is the only thing that could be used in that space.

I don't know what's behind the bricks. The chimney is on an outside wall, but there is nothing but siding on the outside of the house where the chimney is until it comes out of the roof. By counting bricks, it looks like the chimney is about 7’ from the high side of the roof to the top. The roof is a 12/12 (45*) pitch, and the chimney sticks out about half way up. Inside, the matching high point on the chimney is a bit over 14' to the ceiling (Tongue and groove boards). Add a foot or two for the roof thickness and I'm estimating 25' height for the first floor flue. I doubt I'll have any draft issues!

The liner comes straight down to the bottom of the main chimney section, and sticks out a few inches, then goes into the crosspiece of a “T” fitting. The other end of the crosspiece is capped, and is about 14” off the floor. The base of the “T” connects to the flue of the current stove via a 6” -> 8” adapter. Looking up with a mirror, it appears the liner is running up a clay flue tile, probably 8"x8". I don't see a block off plate (But I'm not sure I need one in this application). The liner is corrugated stainless steel. The bottom end looks pretty good, and our sweep hasn't said anything bad about the rest of it. I did find a label on the stove with a test date of 5/17/79 so I'm guessing the liner dates from approximately that time. I've gotten it hot enough to glow a couple of times, but AFAIK, there has never been a chimney fire in it.

To be continued...

Gooserider

 

[Gooserider]

Continued from previous...

The basement hearth is directly under the first floor hearth, and appears to run a second liner up the same chimney "behind" the first floor flue. It mostly duplicates the structure on the floor above, except that the "fins" are straight up and down, and the diagonal corner section is flat. There is a thimble about 5' up, and a LONG reach back to the bend (a "T" fitting?) where the stack goes up, and also down to a clean-out at floor level. This is consistent with the flue liner being behind the first floor liner, and is also what it looks like is happening when the sweep is cleaning the chimney and the brush comes out the top.

Back on the 1st floor, the hearth is red brick, about 3" (one brick on it's side) above the carpet I don't know what's under it. The basement hearth area has a copper ceiling about 6" lower than the rest of the 8' nominal sheet-rock basement ceiling I'm can't tell what's above the copper, but it sounds hollow. The basement is semi to mostly finished, so its hard to tell just what is in there. I can't see any signs of support other than the normal floor joists in the hearth area, I'm not sure if anything else is required. The rest of the floor appears to be 2x8 joists, with 1" planking on top of them, covered by a 3/4"? particle board sub-floor. The floors are carpeted with a fairly typical cut pile carpet, with a thin foam pad.

Assuming the 19" depth of the Large Everburn, I'd have about a foot between the front of the stove and the edge of the hearth. If I recall the numbers from other threads correctly, I'd need another two feet or so to be safe / legal. What I'm not sure about is how to do that. From a cosmetic and functional standpoint, I think the best approach would be to have an extension that was about the same height or a bit less than the carpet so that I don't have a toe busting trip hazard. If I pulled up a strip of carpet, and maybe a matching section of the particle board subfloor, could I build something that was legal? (I.E, a layer of cement-board covered with tile?)

Gooserider

 

[elkimmeg]

goose it seems you setup is ready to step up into the Ever burn technology of the modern VC non cat stove Either the dutch west line od the encore. Till you have experienced top loading you will never go back to side ever. Why support VC well Americn pride clouds my judgement. All cast iron VC stoves are made in Bethel VT. It saves USA manufacturing jobs mThere are many good stove to choose from but your situation they need to be rear venting

 

[Gooserider]

goose it seems you setup is ready to step up into the Ever burn technology of the modern VC non cat stove Either the dutch west line od the encore. Till you have experienced top loading you will never go back to side ever. Why support VC well Americn pride clouds my judgement. All cast iron VC stoves are made in Bethel VT. It saves USA manufacturing jobs mThere are many good stove to choose from but your situation they need to be rear venting

I'd like to step up, but it's a big question of $$$ Since the biggest single reason to replace our stove that hits us personally is the slightly lower wood consumption, but our wood cost is mostly "sweat equity" there isn't any kind of reasonable payback period for the expense. We have other things we are attempting to save for that have much higher priorities, so unless I can get the stove as a gift we will be sticking with the old smoke dragon for now. The gift is a distinct possibility but we won't know until Xmas.

I do have a minor gripe with VC :zip: they need to be more consistent in their specs pages! It is very hard to compare stoves when they give you different sets of numbers! Some of the added specs may be in the manuals, but all the stuff on the VC website are PDF's and I have to go through a lot of hassles to open a PDF at present (I'm working on fixing that, but I'm spending my time here instead of on Gentoo.com... )

I hadn't looked much at the NC Encore up to now, but it doesn't seem quite as desirable.... The specs:

Product Specifications - Large Dutchwest (LD)
Btu/h (Max.) 55000 Btu
Efficiency Rating 63 % (EPA Default)
Btu/hr Range EPA Test Method 11,300 to 26,500 Btu/hr
Heating Area (Max) 1000-2400 sq. ft.
Wood Capacity # of lbs 25-30 lbs
Burn Time (Max.) up to 14 hours
Log Length (Max.) 22-24 in.
Cast Iron Construction YES
Refractory YES
Built-in Thermometer NO
Ash Pan YES
Loading Front & Side
Unit Height 32 1/2 in.
Unit Width 29 1/4 in.
Unit Depth 19 in.
Combustion Technology Everburn non-catalytic
Bottom Heat Shield YES
Heat Circulating Fan Optional FK26
Flue Collar Size Round 6 in.
Flue Collar Reversible Yes

====================================
ENCORE
Log Length (Max.) 20 in.
Burn Time (Max.) 10 hours
Btu/h (Max.) 40,000 Btu
Btu/hr Range EPA Test Method 10,600-24,050 Btu/hr
Weight 395 lbs.
Heating Area (Max) 1900 sq. ft.
EPA Emissions Rating 0.7 (grams/hr)
Flue Collar Size Oval 8 in.
Flue Collar Reversible YES
Firebox Volume 2.1 cubic feet
Efficiency 68 %
Mobile Home Kit YES, U.S. & Canada

Notice - no dimensions on the Encore - can't compare size

Log length - the LD is better, enough so that I would say the difference is that I would need to recut 20% of my splits with the LD and 80% or more with the Encore.

Burn times - The LD has more.

Wood capacity - can't compare easily since the Encore gives volume, and the LD gives pounds...

Heat output - The LD seems to put out a bit more heat, both in the peak and range numbers. The LD is also rated for more area

Flue size - The LD is 6", it isn't clear if the Encore is 6" or 8" - I need to be 6"

I like the idea of top loading, but I'm used to the side load since it's what I do now, and don't have a problem with it.

Most of the other specs seem to either match or be "I don't really care" items, except for one BIG item - price. I haven't done a bunch of price shopping for either stove, but it looks to me like the Encore is about $500 more from the one spot check I just did at Lehman's (based on TraderG's reccomendation) I prefer the flat black look of the LD to the Encore, and I really don't see that the top load feature is that useful to be worth $500 more for what looks like a smaller stove.

Nothing against the Encore, I just don't think it's as good a fit.

Gooserider