Woodstove chimney

I've got a hundred year old wooden house, with a brick chimney running up through it. It's not outside, it's an inside chimney. Teracotta liner, but it's pretty well shot. The chimney isn't safe to use as it stands right now. It needs a liner of some sort. Yes, I've been a safe home owner and haven't used the woodstove because of this.

I've gotten estimates in putting in a wiz bang metal liner, as well as the thermacrete type, and I can't afford either. Not that I can afford to heat the house this year with the oil furnace either.

So I've had two briliant thoughts that I'd like to run by you folks.

One is to put one of those ugly stainless steel chimneys up the side of the house. That's going to cost me several hundred dollars, it'll look weird (starting about 15' above the ground), and I can ill afford it. But it's a possibility.

The other notion (the one I rather like) is to use that black chimney pipe that normally runs from the woodstove to the main chimney, and snake it up inside the old brick and teracotta chimney. I can fill up the gap between them with vermiculite for better insulation and more fire protection. Seems to me that this one would work, and I can definately afford it. Wouldn't last for too many years because those pipes do burn out, but I could also replace them pretty easily.

So am I totally off base with this? Believe me, any feedback, from gut feelings to super expert advice is requested.

Oh, and one last thing, any of you all know about woodstoves and infants? My wife has raised the question about soot and an infants lungs. I don't know the answer, and the tricycle motor is due in a few weeks. So if you know anything about that, please pipe in.

The old stove worked ok, but if you had that puppy with a good hot fire dampered down real low, and opened the door too fast, to add wood, FAROOMPHTH! ...lots of smoke poured into the room and beeping of the fire alarm and kids running around yelling that the alarm went off and wife waving a kitchen towel or bath towel or big couch pillow at the alarm with the front and back doors open at 10pm when it's 33 degrees outside. Where's Norman Rockwell, when you need him?

Well, we finally bought a new super duper gol dang brang spangler new efficient stove and had them guys come and install it for us. They used 6" thin walled pipe and screwed it together real tight. We burned something called "energy logs" (real big pellets...compressed sawdust) last winter, and while it was pretty neat...burns hot, you're recycling, @.85/log, it was probably 75+% more expensive than oak ($185/cord, delivered). The new stove is very efficient and allows you to damp the fire down to a blue flame, which is burning more of the gasses, rather than letting them go up the chimmney.

Dave #1 asked about pellet stoves...everyone around here is turning them in (as well as wood stoves) for the very clean and easy propane stoves. Friends of ours have an older pellet stove. They can really burn efficiently. The fuel comes in bags you store someplace dry and is cheaper than oak cordwood, The exhaust is not too hot and is likened to a dryer (so I am told). Low ashes to clean up. Drawbacks...they need electricity to run the fan (batt. backup?). Astethetics are kinda low too since the flame is real small. They're also noisy.

Well, good luck with whatever you do. The fire and CO2 alarms are a must, and I don't know how you would check the tightness of an old stove, but it shouldn't leak fumes/gas inside the house. I'm kinda obesssive here...no matter how cold it is outside, we usually keep a near window cracked for fresh air. (interesting ideas mentioned earlier re: vents in baseboards). If you go with that thin walled pipe, you might see how much it would be to have it installed professionally. As alluded to, resin-y woods create lots of crud in your chimney (note other posts re: cleaning regularly).

If you have natural gas or propane available, there are lots of options too, and some new stoves don't need the clearance that older ones needed. Some even claim to be "ventless" not requiring a chimmney...???

Black pipe up an existing chimney will work safely, but do leave air between the pipe and the walls of the chimney. Air is a good insulator and the thermodynamics of chimney action will tend to pull any CO leaks up and out. However GET CO DETECTORS near the stove and in all bedrooms in addition to smoke detectors.

Also very important is to make sure that all stove vent inlets work properly, and the door seals properly too. You absolutely must be able to control air flow into your stove. Ideally a stove should be air tight. If you can't throttle air flow back to the stove, the fire will burn too hot and fast, making your chimney hotter than it should causing premature failure. Check the building code in your area to determine how close to walls and ceilings you are suppose to locate your stove, and follow those guidelines as a minimum. You should set your stove on some fire slate too, or what ever they call it in your part of the country. Please sweep your flue out at least once a month.

Where I live in Montana many people heat totally with wood and burn all sorts of wood to boot, even heavy sooting woods like semi green spruce and pine. I am the vice president of the Craig Fire Department here in Craig Montana and of all the stove related fires I've been to were the result of inability to choke off incoming air flow to the stove (causing a very hot stove), stove mounted too close to combustible material / walls, and failure to sweep chimneys.

Also keep the little motor away from the stove, 300 degrees will cause major damage to your tricycle engine, rendering unless for its intended purpose.

• woodstoves

One question though...
Who the heck burns Douglas Fir, and especially
at $125 a cord???

You aren't from Montana are you.

$125 a cord, cut split and delivered, 2 year seasoned, better be Oak, Maple and at the least Ash, or don't bother unloading the truck :-)

Sam

Dell, you should add this to your list of sermons.

IMHO

tom

Sam

Dell, you should add this to your list of sermons.

I am in the same boat.
I have na inside chimney that is not safe and I will not use it.
I am leaning towards the full length (professionally installed) liner. I want to know it is safe before I use it. I have a 'metal-bestos' stainless chimney in another part of the house that works great and was only about $200 complete with my own labor for the install. That included the insulated piece through the roof, and 3, 4 foot sections to get the draft above the peak of the roof. Works great!

As for infants and stoves...Have a 3 year old that has never gone near the thing.
Tried to instill early that it was 'Hot' and seems to have worked. She loves to watch me fill it though...

What about one of those wood pellet stoves ?? I don't know much about them, I guess you can run the pipe out a window, there's some kind of a blower that blows air out along with the exshaust??, keeps the pipe temp down????

I for one would like somemore info on wood pellet stoves, might be something to think about????

later,dave

The most dirt in your air will be from cleaning ashes, clean it when the flue's warm & you can send most of the strays up the chimney. Make sure to get one of those cute little baby fences to go around the stove; besides the obvious, my daughter learned to stand & walk holding on to the one at my stove.

Hope all works out, Happy Heating
Greg in NJ

P.S. Although it sounds cozy, don't clean your N carb by the stove on a cold winter's night (don't ask.)