temporarily wood stove install: am I putting myself at risk?

[oldwhiteoak]

Hello,

I recently bought an uninsulated fixer-upper house and am living in it while working on it. I bought it off a family that had neglected it. I am getting building permits and going by the book, but it would be great to have more heat in here for the winter.

The house has a brick chimney that is approximately 10"x10" wide, with a heavily cracked uninsulated 6" steel chimney liner going up it that that was hooked up to a now-decommissioned oil heater. There is also a good quality woodstove that was never installed. I am wondering if its a crazy idea to hook the wood stove up to the metal chimnney that used to be used by the oil furnace and heat the house over the winter while it is being worked on. This is temporary, as I will get actual permitted heat in it come spring or summer.

I don't think it is to code, but again this is temporary and honestly a better solution than the original owners had. I already dropped a flashlight down the chinmney and cleaned out the bottom, and there is no creosote on the liner or chimney itself. There is the aforementioned two large holes in it. The chimney is on interior walls.

The chimney is 20' tall and the wood stove will be burning for long periods of time to help with drafting, all I need to do to hook it up is buy a couple feet of stovepipe. I also have carbon monoxide detectors next to it in the basement. I am wondering am I putting myself at serious fire hazard with this temporary fix over the next 4 months?

 

[Ctwoodtick]

Sounds like you’re hesitant, probably for good reason.
First- no one can tell you something is safe from a distance. Sound like a good chance that the pipe you’re thinking of connecting to stove is probably not proper or in decent condition.
But put up some pics anyway.

 

[bholler]

Hello,

I recently bought an uninsulated fixer-upper house and am living in it while working on it. I bought it off a family that had neglected it. I am getting building permits and going by the book, but it would be great to have more heat in here for the winter.

The house has a brick chimney that is approximately 10"x10" wide, with a heavily cracked uninsulated 6" steel chimney liner going up it that that was hooked up to a now-decommissioned oil heater. There is also a good quality woodstove that was never installed. I am wondering if its a crazy idea to hook the wood stove up to the metal chimnney that used to be used by the oil furnace and heat the house over the winter while it is being worked on. This is temporary, as I will get actual permitted heat in it come spring or summer.

I don't think it is to code, but again this is temporary and honestly a better solution than the original owners had. I already dropped a flashlight down the chinmney and cleaned out the bottom, and there is no creosote on the liner or chimney itself. There is the aforementioned two large holes in it. The chimney is on interior walls.

The chimney is 20' tall and the wood stove will be burning for long periods of time to help with drafting, all I need to do to hook it up is buy a couple feet of stovepipe. I also have carbon monoxide detectors next to it in the basement. I am wondering am I putting myself at serious fire hazard with this temporary fix over the next 4 months?

We need to know way more about the chimney to be able to make any type of call

 

[all night moe]

Where about in upstate are you? PM me if you prefer.
We also have a moderator here from NY @EatenByLimestone

 

[begreen]

with a heavily cracked uninsulated 6" steel chimney liner going up it that that was hooked up to a now-decommissioned oil heater.

That's a red flag, especially if it is not stainless. At the least, it sounds like a new liner is in order.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

If there’s no heat in the structure now, I’d hit insulation first and make sure as little heat leaves as possible. Then finish off 1 room and heat that.

No way I’d do an unpermitted heater in a structure I cared about. If something were to happen, insurance would have too many questions.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Attic insulation first. Blow in cellulose at least 18” deep. Don’t use blown in fiberglass. It’s only redeeming quality is it’s easy to clean up.

Plastic on the windows will go a long way. Dense packed cellulose is a wonderful wall filler.

 

[all night moe]

If there’s no heat in the structure now, I’d hit insulation first and make sure as little heat leaves as possible. Then finish off 1 room and heat that.

No way I’d do an unpermitted heater in a structure I cared about. If something were to happen, insurance would have too many questions.

I like this suggestion. Is there a possibility in the budget to bring the chimney up to code? Use 316L SS insulated liner, and any needed masonry repairs. The 316L is a multi fuel liner. This would allow going back to your choosing of furnace later.

 

[all night moe]

You could close off some sections of the house too. Uninsulated sections that is.

 

[weee123]

Why not just use a propane salamander or buddy heater to heat the area you’re working on like we do in construction? It would be a lot safer than a woodstove on a suspect chimney.

 

[Ashful]

Insulating first can be a challenge, if OP is running plumbing and wiring now. Plastic on the windows is a slam dunk, and insulate as much as you can as fast as you can.

Knocking out that old clay tile and sliding a new 20 foot liner down that hole would be a relatively cheap and easy solution, in the grand scheme of a whole-house renovation, at least on the scale I do them. Lost cost, if you don't continue using it in the finished home, but really not all that much lost cost in the name of not burning the place down.

bholler is going to tell you the liner should be insulated, as well. Surely he's right, esp. if this is going to stay permanently. If temporary, weigh your comfort with risk.

I also like weee's suggestion of propane salamander. It's exactly how I heated my last two carriage barns during renovations.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

But if you decide to heat with wood, you need wood ready to burn. Jimmy’s firewood down the street isn’t going to get you dry wood. A wood stove isn’t going to save the OP anything in his scenario assuming he’s looking for quick, affordable heat.

 

[yooperdave]

Huh?

The 6" pipe is cracked?

 

[peakbagger]

Years ago my friend's uncle bought a farmhouse in rural Maine, it was gutted from a recent fire. The prior owner had paid to put it up on new foundation and did a lot of major upgrades, gutted the interior, new plumbing, septic and electrical. They were drywalling and had temporary heat in the place. Overnight with no one home, the heater failed and the interior of the place burned. The owner did not have insurance and they ended up selling it a loss as the construction loan came due. It was great deal for my friend's uncle who picked it up cheap and ended up making a nice place of it but its not the first time that houses under major rehab end up burning due to temporary heat. There was a recent fire near me of an expensive summer place that had the same thing, a contractor was rushing to get finished and put in temporary heat overnight and it started a fire, the only thing left was the foundation.

IMHO, I would rather see a legal install or investigate vented diesel heaters like a Toyo stove, they do not take up a lot of room and put out a lot of heat with just one hole in the wall.

 

[Ashful]

Yearsago my friend's uncle bought a farmhouse in rural Maine, it was gutted from a recent fire. The prior owner had paid to put it up on new foundation and did a lot of major upgrades, gutted the interior, new plumbing, septic and electrical. They were drywalling and had temporary heat in the place. Overnight with no one home, the heater failed and the interior of the place burned.

We also had a former family home burn down during renovation. We owned a house for many years now known as the Headquarters Farm, which George Washington had used as his headquarters for ten days leading up to the famous Christmas crossing of the Delaware, and the Battle of Trenton against the Hessians. The family who bought this house around 1984 wanted to do major renovation on it, modernize the interior, electrical, etc. I do not remember the exact details, but a fire happened overnight during renovation when the house was empty, and the place burned almost entirely to the ground before any neighbors even noticed in the morning.

Keith House (Upper Makefield Township, Pennsylvania) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org