OK fellow woodburners, I am really close to installing my NZ3000 in the chase but I need to know if I really need to insulate the chase....to be honest, I really don't want to, for several reasons.....one reason is I have a very large chase that is built outside the house "envelope", it is 8' wide, 4' deep at the bottom, tapering to 2' x 4' at the top....we wanted it that way to mimic the old homestead style cabin chimneys that are dotted all over the northeast....look at pic below....anyway, I have an access door into the crawl space below and a maintainence ladder built into the flue (just because I overkill everything), plus I can always maintain my heating ducts and blower without tearing the whole stove out of the wall.....so what are the pros and cons......I can afford a little heat loss as this is not my primary heat, so how about some honest opinions here.......
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![[Hearth.com] to insulate or not to insulate, that is the question!](/talk/data/attachments/52/52164-96f3a16a1ce383f57fa2db32301200dc.jpg?hash=qeU56W73kk)
I should also mention that I am putting in a false ceiling in the chase, and insulating said ceiling, but do I really need to insulate the whole chase.....
Insulation is really a good idea for outside chimneys but in your case I think I'd just try it as is for a year and see how it goes. Maybe you can add insulation later on if you run into draft problems.
No, they are authentic tomahawks.....I did make a couple of the hafts, but one haft is an original, one of the hawks is even dated to the mid 17th century......the others are from the 1700's....that is one of my vices, I love real tomahawks!!Sisu said:
Thank you, BeGreen.....I know it isn't mandatory, but my biggest concern (which I failed to mention in the original post), is that all the stone is natural veneer that I harvested off the mountain behind our house....I cannot even begin to tell you how much time I have invested in the masonry on my house (outside and inside), that is for another day.....but I hate to use a sealer on this stone as it will give it a totally different look, we want it as natural as possible.....and the pickle I am in is we have been innundated with rain since late summer, and that mortar on the chase soaks up alot of water......so the scenario that scares me is, say we get a big rain here in Nov., and a day or two later we have a deep freeze......that equates to popped stones on that flue, may or may not happen....I would actually like a little heat loss in there to keep that mortar from ever being able to freeze, I shouldn't lose a pile of heat, just some residual off of the pipe for the most part......any thoughts on that scenario?BeGreen said:
That is exactly what I was thinking too, Todd.....I can easily access the chase through the crawlspace door underneath it, so I may let it go for this winter and see what happens....one nice thing is that I have plenty of clearance to combustibles in that chase, several feet in almost all directions......Todd said:
Hogwildz it's Class A pipe, already insulated....that is how I feel, it should be OK just installing it and leaving it as is....I have my stove in the kitchen with class A pipe and no draft problems whatsoever, it is outside the house exposed to the cold and elements....so I really don't see a big problem leaving it uninsulated.......just wanted some people to chime in and tell me their opinions for my specific install....Hogwildz said:
Hogwildz said:
Thanks, and that is kinda the way I am leaning right now.....we'll keep listening for others' opinions too......I'm heading out now to finish framing the false ceiling.......wife is cooking hot turkey sandwiches and I am gonna get in trouble if I keep hanging around the kitchen......I keep stealing the turkey ;-)
Jags and cmonStART, you pretty much helped me finalize my decision.....my only real concern with the chase being non-insulated was not knowing if it would sweat or not on the inside....I don't think it will because the only time you really have a sweating problem is when you have a snow covered roof with no insulation blocking the heat, that is usually where you get sweating issues.....there will be no snowcover on my chase walls, ergo I shouldn't have sweating problems.....so we will be beginning this experiment in approx. one week or so....I'll post pics of my progress....on a positive note I did get the OAK installed in the semi-hidden side of the chase, so all I gotta do now is set the stove on the hearth, bolt it down, hook up a bunch of ducts, install the flue pipe, fabricate and make the chase cap........ugh....lol.....I am a glutton for punishment!
Maybe I am not visualizing this correctly. Is the stone exposed on the house inside of the chase? Or is there stud framework in there? How about an interior picture?
BeGreen, the stone is veneered onto wood substrate.....here's a rundown......2x6 stud framing, 7/16 OSB sheathing, 30lb felt paper wrapped, and overlaped around 1 foot, expanded metal lath, mortar scratchcoat, stone....I was worried about interior air sweating inside the chase, it is wood.........this pic is of the hearth pad when I poured it, you can see the framing of the inside of the chase behind the hearth pad.....BeGreen said:
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That's what I visualized. So now I am confused about the concerns for the stone and sealing vs the question of insulation. They seem unrelated. The interior of the chase is an interior wall of the house. That's why I'd insulate it. It will help keep the heat generated by the fireplace in the house. And it will buffer the differential temp between the wood wall and the stone. That seems like a good thing to me.
Not was I was picturing in my mind. If that is part of an outside wall, I would def insulate the wall portions of the chase at least. Just as you would any outside wall.
BeGreen said:
I missed that part to. This is two separate issues. Do you insulate the wall? Yes. Is your stove pipe insulated? Yes. Best of both worlds.
Did you read about my concern regarding keeping the stone dry? That was my main reason for not wanting to insulate the chase.......may have to ponder this some more .....
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