Stove pipe installed lower than exhaust exit on Wood stove.

Hi Folks,

My first post here. I have seen permies.com all over youtube/internet, but I have just never gotten around to joining. Finally did. I am looking forward to learning a lot here

So my wife and I recently bought a really nice Hitzer wood stove on (very similar to this one http://www.hitzer.com/products/stove/Model-50_93-E_Z-Flo-Hopper-Stove/ minus the blower.) for $50 bucks on criagslist!!! The gentleman who sold it to me was moving to CA and just had to get rid of it because they were moving. He has posted it on craigslist for 150 bucks multiple times but despite folks showing interest in the stove, no one actually showed up to buy it. He re-posted it for $50.00 and I had to bite Was a 2 hour drive into the north country to buy the stove, but it was worth it and I was very excited to secure this Amish made wood/coal stove for 50 bills.

Here is my dilemma... We bought our house about four years ago and there is a brick chimney that came with the house complete with a clay flue and also a metal pipe liner as well. We could see some mud work that had been painted over on the living room wall where a stove pipe has been installed, so I knew more or less where the hookup was behind the wall. I removed a section of the sheet rock to reveal the hookup only to find that the hole that is cut in the chimney/flue/stove pipe liner is a few inches BELOW where the smoke exit (not sure what the technical term is for this piece of the wood stove is ? ) on the stove is. So this means that in order to use this hookup I would have to install a pipe fitting which would route the smoke lower than the hole in the wall then it would rise up to meet it creating a slight dip in the piping (major creosote trap ? a blessing in disguise? ). The only other alternative would be to patch up the hole in the stove pipe lining that is the lining the flue, patch up the whole in the clay flue and then patch up the actually brick chimney and install a whole new set of holes at a higher point on the wall (which is possible but would be a lot more work) in which to route the stove pipe from the wood stove.

Here is a picture of the stove before I cleaned it up (it has a crack in the glass which I need to replace):




Hole in the wall (somewhat to my wife's dismay lol)


Close up of the install holes which in order are sheetrock/brick masonry on the chimney/clay flue/metal liner.



So I have a few questions:

1. Would installing the stove pipe with a slight dip (lower than the exit on the actual stove) be "up to code" as far as most building permits would require ? (I'm in New Hampshire)

2. I would imagine that this type of setup would not draw ideally... not the best setup, but would it work ? Even if it was just for a few years until I could install it "properly" with the pipe installed higher up.

3. If I do indeed have to patch up the original "holes" and install the stove pipe higher up on the wall, what would be the best way of going about. Specifically, how would you recommend that I patch up the metal stove pipe liner that is inside of the clay flue ? Would I buy some sort of metal patch and then use metal screws to fasten it on (cheapest repair ?)...Then repair the clay flue (recommendations ?)....then the brickwork of the chimney, then onto the sheet rock and mud/paint etc.

I am hoping I can get away with just having the stove pipe dip down 6 inches or so before it rises back up to meet the hole in the wall/chimney/flue/metal liner. Has anyone ever run it like that ? I tried googling the issue and could not really find any info. This setup has to pass a homeowner's insurance inspection so it has to be legit. I hope my ramblings made some sort of sense Please let me know if I need to clarify anything. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have never installed a wood stove myself (seen it done when I was a kid in Vermont, but not since then). Thanks ahead of time!

Regards,
Lochlainn

You got a good deal, I paid a LOT more for a stove that looked just like that. I installed it in a HUGE brick fireplace, and used a regular piece of stove pipe to shove up into the chimney and then I slapped adobe around where it looked like it needed it. The chimney was lined with oval terra cotta and I didn't go to the trouble of filling the space between the oval and the cylinder of the riser that I attached. The 8 to 10 inches of riser was plenty of upward inertia that I never had any smoke drafting down and out the side. Probably not "up to code" but this was an old, old fireplace.

One of the nice things about the stove was that you could put in a lot of wood at night, and it would burn for a long time. Kind of the opposite of the rocket stove which is so popular here. With a rocket stove, you do a quick burn and move all that heat into a large thermal mass. With this type of stove, although it does have a pretty good size thermal mass, the damper on the stove keeps it to a real slow burn, and releases the heat of the wood over a longer time. Mine had an electric fan that drew in air below the firebox, circulated it around the back and over the top, and there was a slot across the top of the box where the heated air would come out. When it had come up to temperature, the air coming out of the slot was about 150-160F.

So to answer your question, I think with the low air flow that this stove has, it can handle a bend in the exhaust tube, as long as you have a good bit of riser to bring the exhaust up to speed after the bend. Put the whole thing together with stove piping that you can get at the hardware store and then make it airtight with lots of cob or adobe.

John Elliott wrote:You got a good deal, I paid a LOT more for a stove that looked just like that. I installed it in a HUGE brick fireplace, and used a regular piece of stove pipe to shove up into the chimney and then I slapped adobe around where it looked like it needed it. The chimney was lined with oval terra cotta and I didn't go to the trouble of filling the space between the oval and the cylinder of the riser that I attached. The 8 to 10 inches of riser was plenty of upward inertia that I never had any smoke drafting down and out the side. Probably not "up to code" but this was an old, old fireplace.

One of the nice things about the stove was that you could put in a lot of wood at night, and it would burn for a long time. Kind of the opposite of the rocket stove which is so popular here. With a rocket stove, you do a quick burn and move all that heat into a large thermal mass. With this type of stove, although it does have a pretty good size thermal mass, the damper on the stove keeps it to a real slow burn, and releases the heat of the wood over a longer time. Mine had an electric fan that drew in air below the firebox, circulated it around the back and over the top, and there was a slot across the top of the box where the heated air would come out. When it had come up to temperature, the air coming out of the slot was about 150-160F.

So to answer your question, I think with the low air flow that this stove has, it can handle a bend in the exhaust tube, as long as you have a good bit of riser to bring the exhaust up to speed after the bend. Put the whole thing together with stove piping that you can get at the hardware store and then make it airtight with lots of cob or adobe.

Thanks for the reply and info. Ya I was pretty excited to get such a great deal. Hopefully I can get it installed with no problems

Might have smoke-back at start up until the riser gets hot. Were me I'd do the extra work so gravity is _always_ your friend. I'm scared of CO and downright annoyed at smoke where it don't belong.

My .02.


Rufus

I agree with Rufus, patch the existing hole and go with a hole higher up. It's not worth the trouble to connect it low only to find out you will get smoke back into the room. I doubt that you will find an inspector that will approve the dip in the pipe, before it goes up. You will just be creating a lot of smoke and creosote.
Do you also realize that you must use "Class A" insulated pipe, which has a 2" clearance to combustible materials, such as your drywall and wood structure behind the drywall. Then per "code" you will need to use a stainless steel liner up through the existing chimney, if you don't have one already.
Technically, once you install the pipe up higher into a tee connector, no heat or smoke can come down to the existing hole, so a metal plate, screws, and sealant and them mud in the rest, to patch up the hole.
I can't tell if that is a 6" or 8" exhaust, but that will be the size of the liner you will need to run up through the chimney.

Lochlainn Kiarnan wrote:Hi Folks,


1. Would installing the stove pipe with a slight dip (lower than the exit on the actual stove) be "up to code" as far as most building permits would require ? (I'm in New Hampshire)

No, there is no code that would permit this.

2. I would imagine that this type of setup would not draw ideally... not the best setup, but would it work ? Even if it was just for a few years until I could install it "properly" with the pipe installed higher up.

Once the chimeny was hot, it would work fine. It's the start up part that wouldn't work, or at least not work very well. Smokeback would be common and awful.

3. If I do indeed have to patch up the original "holes" and install the stove pipe higher up on the wall, what would be the best way of going about. Specifically, how would you recommend that I patch up the metal stove pipe liner that is inside of the clay flue ? Would I buy some sort of metal patch and then use metal screws to fasten it on (cheapest repair ?)...Then repair the clay flue (recommendations ?)....then the brickwork of the chimney, then onto the sheet rock and mud/paint etc.

I am hoping I can get away with just having the stove pipe dip down 6 inches or so before it rises back up to meet the hole in the wall/chimney/flue/metal liner. Has anyone ever run it like that ? I tried googling the issue and could not really find any info. This setup has to pass a homeowner's insurance inspection so it has to be legit. I hope my ramblings made some sort of sense Please let me know if I need to clarify anything. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I have never installed a wood stove myself (seen it done when I was a kid in Vermont, but not since then). Thanks ahead of time!

Regards,
Lochlainn

Are the legs of the stove removable? If you can place it upon a non-combustable flat surface, that would be better than trying to dip the flue down. That might require cutting out a hole in your floor, and installing a metal well to set the stove into. Perhaps the best solution would be to instal an electric draft fan on the roof of your house, and use powered draft in order to render the 6" dip in the flue irrelevant. But then, you'd have to use the powered draft all of the time, and you would not be able to use the stove during a power outage. You really should consult a local expert, there is only so much advise we could offer you in this regard without actually seeing the situation in person, and you need to have the chiminey inspected anyway.