Venting down .5 inch

[azs]

Currently I have a Englander that vents at 15.9 inches and goes straight out the wall. I can buy a quadra fire Santa Fe that vents at 16.4. I know it's okay for the vent in the new stove to be lower or the same as the current vent but not higher. Is .5 inches a big deal though?

 

[Washed-Up]

Can you undo the mounts on the thimble and shimmy it up .5”?

 

[SidecarFlip]

Why, when I put mine in, I custom built a brick hearth pad and then added another layer of bricks (actually pre cast concrete colored bricks I purchase at Lowes) and then I did the venting. My thought was at some point I'd probably get a new unit (maybe a Harman..lol) and if the vent height was different, I could add another layer of bricks or remove the existing layer if necessary. Easy to adjust the vent height that way. Easy to add not so easy to subtract when there is nothing to subtract from.

Candidly, I don't believe .5 inch drop will make much difference except maybe with fly ash collection in the vent pipe. You may have to clean the vent (of fly ash) more often.

If it was me, I'd just go with it and keep an eye on how much fly ash collects in the venting.

 

[stoveliker]

I've ran a 2' horizontal section that went down by a similar amount. No big deal (for my 26-27' tall chimney system). [I fixed that though; it's horizontal now, but unfortunately not 0.5-1" up... .]

In the end you are restricting the open cross section of your flue a little bit, but that is not complete, and it's not much. If your draft is high enough (chimney tall enough) it won't be a problem. If you are borderline on draft, it is not a good idea.