I have a center chimney colonial style home built around 1785 in CT. The original chimney was rebuilt around the year 1900 from the ground up, it is brick with 4 individual flues, all unlined. Total height from the first floor to the chimney cap is approximately 32 feet. When we moved into the house 4 years ago we purchased a new Vermont Castings Encore and had it "professionally" installed, along with a 6" round flexible stainless chimney liner. Turns out I'm not super thrilled with the install job and am questioning some of what they did. I don't have any desire to climb up on the roof so would be hiring somebody to perform any work up there. I am familiar with the challenges of operating this stove and am working through many improvements I have read about on this forum. My questions here are specifically about the chimney.
1) The liner they installed is uninsulated. While much of the chimney is inside the house, about 12 feet passes through the attic and about 4 feet is above the roof line. Should we have pushed to have an insulated liner installed? When I asked the installer they said it would not be necessary. The flue is pretty tight on the 6 inch liner, it had to be ovalized slightly to make it through the old damper plate in the fireplace. Maybe an insulated liner would not have fit... I see there is a vermiculite based product that you can dump down around the liner, is this worthwhile? I sweep the chimney from the bottom 2-3 times per season and gather maybe 1 gallon of crunchy black creosote each time. I don't think this is too bad considering the length of the chimney. But there is some glass-like "liquid" that is firmly stuck to the walls of the pipe and does not diminish with brushing, I believe this is from flue gas condensing on its upward journey.
2) Due to the dimensions of the fireplace, we are using the rear exit on the Encore. It runs about 12-18" horizontally, then goes into an elbow up to the liner. Debris that falls down the chimney collects in this elbow and on one occasion in our first winter with this stove caught fire when the damper was left open too long on a hot reload. I am much more diligent about cleaning this elbow now, about every month (we burn only on weekends generally). I am considering swapping this elbow for a tee that would allow the debris to gather out of the direct path of any wayward flames, would this help? I actually think we might be able to squeeze the stove into the fireplace and use the vertical exit, but connecting the liner and cleaning it would be next to impossible.
3) I'm considering purchasing a used Magnehelic pressure gauge to measure my draft at various conditions. I'm wondering if some of my challenges operating the stove in a safe and controlled manner are a result of a high draft in my chimney. In which case insulating would probably make my problems worse and exacerbate any leaks in my stove. Is it better just to leave the chimney alone and deal with the stove itself? We get an occasional backpuff but I have attributed that to the tempermental Encore stove and my battles to keep it from melting itself down...
1) The liner they installed is uninsulated. While much of the chimney is inside the house, about 12 feet passes through the attic and about 4 feet is above the roof line. Should we have pushed to have an insulated liner installed? When I asked the installer they said it would not be necessary. The flue is pretty tight on the 6 inch liner, it had to be ovalized slightly to make it through the old damper plate in the fireplace. Maybe an insulated liner would not have fit... I see there is a vermiculite based product that you can dump down around the liner, is this worthwhile? I sweep the chimney from the bottom 2-3 times per season and gather maybe 1 gallon of crunchy black creosote each time. I don't think this is too bad considering the length of the chimney. But there is some glass-like "liquid" that is firmly stuck to the walls of the pipe and does not diminish with brushing, I believe this is from flue gas condensing on its upward journey.
2) Due to the dimensions of the fireplace, we are using the rear exit on the Encore. It runs about 12-18" horizontally, then goes into an elbow up to the liner. Debris that falls down the chimney collects in this elbow and on one occasion in our first winter with this stove caught fire when the damper was left open too long on a hot reload. I am much more diligent about cleaning this elbow now, about every month (we burn only on weekends generally). I am considering swapping this elbow for a tee that would allow the debris to gather out of the direct path of any wayward flames, would this help? I actually think we might be able to squeeze the stove into the fireplace and use the vertical exit, but connecting the liner and cleaning it would be next to impossible.
3) I'm considering purchasing a used Magnehelic pressure gauge to measure my draft at various conditions. I'm wondering if some of my challenges operating the stove in a safe and controlled manner are a result of a high draft in my chimney. In which case insulating would probably make my problems worse and exacerbate any leaks in my stove. Is it better just to leave the chimney alone and deal with the stove itself? We get an occasional backpuff but I have attributed that to the tempermental Encore stove and my battles to keep it from melting itself down...
