Top vent or rear vent??

[scotsman]

Is there any long-term advantage or disadvantage to one or the other?

I talked to an engineer at a manufacturer who doesn't make rear vents. He said it's a difficult engineering problem and they don't do it. Don't know for sure what he meant, and that was AFTER I asked him why and he "answered"! I got the impression he didn't think they were safe.

Can anybody shed some light on this? I see top and rear vents on lots of what look like good quality stoves. Can't believe they wouldn't be safe. Just trying to make sense of all this.

Gracias!

--no stove
--no maul
--no splitter
--no saw
. . . yet!

But lots of DRY wood!

 

[begreen]

It's certainly not an issue of safety though it does affect rear clearances. Rear vent is common on cast iron and soapstones. I am guessing this is because they are much more frequently used in fireplaces, especially in Europe. Steel stoves tend to be purpose-built stand alone stoves and show up less frequently in fireplace hearths. Well at least before BB put his big NC30 in there. I think it's got to be easier to design a stove that works with only one venting configuration. So cost may be a driving factor.

 

[04074]

From what I gather the top vent models have a stronger draft, that may be explain the "difficult engineering problem" statement. jmho