Hi Everyone, hope your having a great Monday!

I was blessed with a free Fire-N-Glow wood stove over the weekend. This is the kind that looks more like a fireplace then a wood stove, it's round with an upside down funnel on top, glass inserts all the way around. Does anyone have one of these? I want to put it down in the basement, so I have a couple of questions.

1) What do you use to make a hole in the concrete block? 2) Do you have the chimney pipe go outside at ground level? 3) Do you have to build an enclosure around the pipe as it goes up beside the house? If so, what materials do you use?

Thanks for your help, have a great week!

Todd O <>< IA

-- Todd Osborn (Tosborn@cccglobal.com), September 25, 2000

Answers

i will tell you how we did it. we have a fisher wood stove, the stove its self must sit x amount of ft. from the wall,check code. the pipe leaving the stove through the wall is triple insulated along w/ the pipe running up the side of the house. you can touch the pipe w/ a fire going and feel no heat at all. i believe you can use other material but you need a block or brick chimney around it.codes are real tight and also check your insurance policey we had to change ours once we added the wood stove. i think there are special bits for drills that go through block, you will need to watch the distance between the pipe in your house and the ceiling, we solved it by cutting a vent in the ceiling and putting a grate in which allows 2 things 1 the ceiling does not heat up and 2 the bedroom upstairs gets alot of heat when we open the grate.

also check about the flooring under the stove.code here requires either a fire proof mat or stone. the triple insulated pipe is very pricey but so is building a new house if it burns down! call a chimney sweep they can come out and hook them up or at least fill you in to code.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), September 25, 2000.

Todd, I've never used a Fire-N-Glow so can't give you any help there. As for your other questions-

1. Whatever method you use to knock a hole in block, make sure you're wearing eye protection and a dust mask. First way to make a hole is with what's called a star drill-a fancy pointed chisel that you'd drive through the block with a hammer. If you can find someone with a hammer drill, your life would be much easier. They're big drills that twist and punch down at the same time. You might want to have the owner come with the drill since you'll probably be working horizontally and possibly over your head, not the easiest way to use a hammer drill, especially if you've never used one before. You could also just knock the entire block out and mortar back in around your pipe.

2. There are a lot of good reasons to run the chimney straight up through the house, but you can take it to the outside. Bends need to be as few and as gentle as possible both to help prevent creosote buildup and to make it easier to clean. Talk to your chimney pipe supplier about the brackets for the pipe you buy.

3. As long as the pipe is insulated, you don't need an enclosure. Use the brackets to get the proper stand-away.

Many times your chimney supplier will have little handouts that will explain proper clearances and assembly methods. Make sure you get one, and just this once, READ IT.

We've got heavy frost on the cars this morning, hope you're warmer down there. Good luck with your new stove. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), September 25, 2000.

Thank you for the responses that have come in so far. One more thing I forgot to ask, can you recommend a how-to-do yourself book that would show step by step installing a wood stove down in the basement?

Thanks, Todd o. <>< IA

-- Todd Osborn (tosborn@cccglobal.com), September 25, 2000.

Yes and no. I've got books, and my library has books, as yours surely does. But they tend to be older, and may or may not still apply to the codes and materials of today. Check at your library, maybe around the 680's? Not sure, I just know where to go in my library. Your supplier might have something, the manufacter might have something, if you get someone to help you install it, they might know something. I hope somebody can come up with a current book title for you. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), September 25, 2000.

Todd: Good questions, and ones we have been contemplating, too. We have a vinyl sided home, with a very deep basement, and have thought about putting a wood stove down there, and putting the chimney up the outside, as we already have a woodstove in the center of our house on the main floor. No way to put the chimney up through the inside on this place. It'll be interesting to see what other responses there are to your questions! Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), September 25, 2000.

>>>We have a vinyl sided home, with a very deep basement, and have >>>thought about putting a wood stove down there, and putting the >>>chimney up the outside. (Janice12@aol.com)

Hi Everyone, I couldn't believe the prices! I guess I didn't have a clue about the prices of insulated pipe to run a chimney up the side of the house from the basement. $56.00 at Mynards for a little section of insulated pipe. I had no clue, is there any other way to cut down on the cost? Are there cheaper places?

todd<>
-- Todd Osborn (tosborn@cccglobal.com), September 28, 2000.

Sorry Todd. That's about as good a price as you're going to find. And allow maybe another $100 for the bits and pieces you'll need besides the pipe itself. You might, just might, find some place in the big city that can undersell Menard's by a buck or two, but not likely. Over here, it runs from $56 to about $120 a section.

A little over a decade ago it was $33 a section. A few years later it was $44. Now $56. There's been quite a bit on both the local and national news about people rushing to put wood burning appliances in, so there may well be another price increase, and very probably a shortage at least for the fall. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), September 28, 2000.

We have a 2 story house and just spent almost $500.00 to put pipe in from the main floor to over the peek .I thought I was going to croak ! But I will never have to do it again .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), September 28, 2000.

Just hope you never have to have your chimney lined!!!! For those with old brick chimneys to meet code in many areas it must be lined with a flexable metal interpipe. A 30ft run was going to cost $2000 installed. I instead had it inspected by two other people who didnt sell liners and they said it didnt need anything. I did confirm that the $2k was the right price when it needs lined, but many installers like to scare people.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), October 02, 2000.

There is a huge difference in cost with buying 6" chimney versus 8". The Heat-N-Glow stove that I have (Note: I think I said Fire-N-Glow the first time), but it's a Heat-N-Glow stove with glass inserts all the way around, specifies an 8 inch. Is there anything I can do like decrease the fire box with fire brick or something so that I can go to 6" chimney?

Thanks Todd O. <>< IA

-- todd osborn (Tosborn@cccglobal.com), October 02, 2000.

Sorry again Todd. You can buy/make/have made a reducer to take the stove from 8" to 6". But. Unless you are taking the chimney straight up, and the roof lines and wind conditions are exactly right, you're not going to get a good draw. And even then you'd need to run the stove throttled back so you didn't overwhelm the chimney. So I'm afraid that you're stuck with 8" pipe.

There are some things you could do if you don't have to have the stove operational right now. There is the possibility that after this first rush of people installing stoves there will be a drop off in interest. Suppliers might want to dump inventory of pipe they've been stuck with or purchasers who never got around to installing their stoves might have, as it were, a fire sale. December (businesses frequently are trying to close their books and end-use customers are scrambling for Christmas money) and January (business tends to be off then, and end-use customers are beginning to see their holiday bills) and into February (as January) can be really good times to have some money in your pocket..... Also come very late winter and on into early summer, (without knowing what kind of winter we'll have and what prices will be like for heating) a lot of people will decide they don't want that stupid stove taking up room, burning holes in the rug, all that dirty wood in the house, etc. Stoves and pipes will start coming on the market. It wouldn't hurt to call when you see an ad for a stove and ask if they want some nice person to come and get that nasty old chimney out of their way. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 02, 2000.

Hi Everyone,

Is there anyone out there in homestead land that happens to make a living inspecting chimney's including pre-fab chimneys?

Thanks Todd <>
-- Todd Osborn (tosborn@cccglobal.com), October 04, 2000.

Hi Everyone,

Today I went over to Menards evaluating prices etc. for the 6" verses 8" chimney pipe delima that I am in. Over by the fireplaces they also had what they called chimney pipe, however it wasn't insulated. It was a 8" diameter pipe inside a much bigger dimeter pipe. They called it 3' Double wall chimney pipe 29.97 Can I use this type of 8" dimeter chimney pipe for my woodstove? I could stick with the 8" that everyone wants me to use and the price would be a whole lot better. This is for an outside chimney from the basement up 15 feet.

Thanks in advance for your answers! todd O <>< IA

-- Todd Osborn (tosborn@cccglobal.com), October 09, 2000.

Oh joys, I get to rain on your parade again. Sorry Todd. But, well, yes, you could. It wouldn't meet manufacturer's specifications, your insurance agent would have a whole herd of cows (and probably dump you) and no sober (or probably even drunk) building inspector would approve it. And then there are some problems....

It will corrode rapidly, maybe a 5-10 year life span. It will be corroding both from the inside out and the outside in due to the smoke and temperature differentials. So all too soon, you'll be pricing chimney again. An insulated chimney should last at least 30 years.

Due to the lack of insulation, you'll have a much greater creosoting problem, requiring frequent careful cleanings.

Also due to the lack of insulation, you'll have greatly increased clearance requirements, including the stand-away zone where the chimney runs up the side of the house.

You'll also lose an important benefit of insulated chimney-fire protection. Properly installed, an insulated chimney can keep a chimney fire contained within itself without igniting the surrounding house. (Still a risk from sparks coming out the top and setting fire to the roof) The figures on insulated chimneys are pretty impressive and I sleep well at night.

Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sorry. But yes, you could use the cheaper stuff. In fact I've got a woodstove with just single wall on it. BUT that stove is never fired unattended, the chimney is kept CLEAN, and when we're getting done in that building, we let the fire burn down so by the time we leave, it is basically out. Then we keep an eye on the building and even go back out once or twice and stick our heads in to make sure nothing is getting started. We've also got tremendous clearances around it. We'd never leave home with even embers going in that stove. And we keep spare pipe on hand, so if when cleaning we find an iffy piece, we just replace it then. We also have sheet metal, sheet metal equipment, and a crimping roller so even if we were snowed in, an iffy piece of pipe would never get reused we'd just make a new piece.

It is going to be your call on this Todd. Try putting an ad in a shopper type paper, or stick one up on a bulletin board at the grocery store or somewhere. Somewhere people are sitting on some unused insulated 8" pipe. You know what it cost new, that gives you an idea that unused pipe should be somewhat less, and used should be even less. You might get lucky and find a whole bunch, or you might find someone with one section left over, someone else with a couple of sections left over... for about $10 a newpaper ad, it would be worth it. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), October 10, 2000.

Thanks Gerbil,

I think I am leaning toward putting up the insulated 6" chimney and then praying about getting a smaller wood burning stove.

It's to bad I can't somehow modify the wood stove we were blessed with, but maybe we could use it sometime when we finally get a country place.

It doesn't make sense to me why I couldn't use the stove by decreasing the firebox size in half by using fire bricks. Cutting the volume of the firebox seems to me to do the same thing as having a smaller wood stove and therefore you could use the 6" chimney???

Do you know if it is stated as code that you have to have the same size chimney as the flue size of the stove or is it just a recommendation? Let's say I cut the firebox volume in half with fire brick, and put up a perfect (meeting all distance requirements etc), 6" diameter chimney. And let's pretend that I have no problems with draft cause I got it a good distance beyond the roof. Could an inspector write me a bad report to the insurance company, is it code to have matching flu and chimney or just recommendation??

Thanks for your time in all this! Todd <>< IA

-- Todd Osborn (tosborn@cccglobal.com), October 10, 2000.

Hopefully you will have the wretched chimney pipe installed by now,insulated,passing building codes & fire marshall requirements, if not we suggest you get qualified person to do it - when you can afford the price of one . Have a safe day !

-- Jan.4th,2001 (tess@alberni.net), January 04, 2001.