Putting a free standing wood stove in an old fireplace-Advice Needed

[clinchscavalry]

Our house in central Georgia is pretty typical of ones built around here in the late thirties; it is very poorly insulated. We added on in '93 which included a rebuild of the entire roof, converting an old tin, uninsulated one to a conventional plywood and asphalt shingle design with decent insulation installed. However well insulated the "new" part is, the original house is a constant source of drafts and energy leaks.

I know, you say rip out the floors (some with zero subfloor), install new windows, blow in more insulation, put foam in the walls, etc., etc. Well we just can't spend the money, and I'm not convinced it's very cost effective anyway. I've just reconciled myself to the fact that we attached a perfectly healthy body (the new addition) to a malignant tumor (the old part), and it is what it is.

This "winter" has consisted of a day or two here and there with temperatures cold enough to even bother building a fire. We have three wood burning heaters in our house, a cast iron stove in the middle bottom floor which is the primary source of heat unless it gets unusually cold, a Buck Stove upstairs in the newer part which will almost run you back downstairs when it's going strong, and a traditional fireplace in a back den in the old part of the house. As you all know, the open fireplace, while nice to look at, is just not very efficient. If I tried to really heat with it, my entire life would be cutting firewood for the hungry beast. I'd venture to say it consumes four times the wood as my stoves and produces one fourth the heat.

We are having one of our rare winter spells right now with morning temps in the low 20s and the highs in the high forties. That's pretty cold in our area, and our drafty house is quite a chore to heat. We have two central heat/ac units with the heat furnished by propane, but the expense to heat the entire five bedroom house is ridiculous, and with just two of us here now, we choose to close off a good bit of the downstairs anyway.

I am considering putting another Buck Stove or similar heater in the old fireplace, keeping that room opened up in the winter and heating about 75% of the house with the three woodburners. Thankfully, I have an unlimited supply of pecan firewood, and I really enjoy cutting and splitting it.

My question concerns putting a stove inside the old fireplace. My stove dealer tells me I have to buy all this pipe and fittings to install the new stove. I think I can just run the stovepipe up through the damper a few feet and be done with it. Of course, that creates a chimney cleaning problem, and I also thought about running a single wall pipe all the way up through the existing flue liner. However, the existing chimney is fairly tall, going about 12 ft. above the roof (for draft), and there's a concrete cap on it, which makes cleaning quite a chore.

My last stove install resulted in pipe and fittings expense that was more than the cost of the stove! I just don't see any reason for all that again, but the dealer takes the path of "covering his ass" and recommends overkill on parts, in my opinion.

What say y'all ? The model I'm considering is the small Buck, and I think I can just slide it in the fireplace with a short pipe on top. In fact, I thought about letting the pipe extend just up to the damper and then be able to remove it from the stove, put some sort of cover on top to catch the debris and clean the brick chimney as usual.

I'm open to suggestions of other brands of stoves, but I definitely need one with a blower to move warm air out into the room, and our old Buck is now 34 years young with zero problems.

All three fireplaces/stoves are going wide open right now, which is rarely needed for our climate, and we can choose whatever degree of warmth we want by moving from one room to another. I'm upstairs in front of the Buck, and it's a toasty 69 degrees. Other parts of the house are in the forties, and the rest is everything in between.

Time for lunch and another round of firewood cutting this afternoon to clean up some oaks cut down behind our house. I won't burn it, but a firewood customer wants 7 ft. rounds so he can cut them up and split them himself. He's too cheap to buy my split and seasoned wood.:msp_unsure:

 

[Landsinn]

I can relate to your situation!!! I had an open fireplace and first put a fireplace insert in it to try to make it more effiecient. It was better than the original fireplace but still not efficient enough and lot of buildup in the chimney with a short pipe inside through the damper of the chimney. So ended up with a lot of cleaning an a few chimney fires. I eventually had the opening bricked and a hole cut through it with a thimble and stainless steel pipe run up inside the chimney with a clean up door outside the chimney. Had a nice brick base area built to meet inspection standards and got a free standing wood stove and couldn't be happier. So now have an efficient and much safer stove and looks great!!!!
So my advise would be not to run a short pipe in but a least a pipe up the entire chimney length to make it safer. I know its expensive but with the short pipes you mention, leading into the damper, make it a living hell when you have to clean the larger opening of the chimney and going from a small pipe to the larger area in the chimney is just asking for not as good drafting and creosote build up. Just my experience and hope it helps!!!

 

[raktym]

I did just what you want to do. Did it over 25 years ago, just slid it in and it worked great up until a few months ago. Its a brick chimney with a clay liner and I noticed long vertical cracks in the liner. I live calif. and we have earthquakes every now and then so I installed a stainless steel chimney liner. The stove works even better now. Its much easier to light, burns hotter and I seem to be using less wood. Aslo I don't think I'll have to clean the chimney so often. I've been burning for a coulple of months with the new flue and theres very little creosote buildup .

the 16 feet of liner cost me $350 including the shipping. My son made the top and bottom connections for me but if I had to buy them it would have doubled the cost.

I'm not sure but I think most building codes now require a liner in masonry chimneys. Your insurance guy might also require it.

Bob

 

[morewood]

A couple of years ago we fixed up a fireplace to use a stove for an elderly gentleman we go to church with. We measured where we would need the terra cotta and bricked up the face of the fireplace and put the tc in place. When it set up we moved the stove with pipe in place and it was ready to go. It wasn't pretty, but he was very appreciative for the new found heat. The chimney was lined when he had it put it. I say go for it.

Shea

 

[zogger]

Our setup here is a similar old turn of the century brick fireplace that eventually got blocked off with more brick and a round opening. I just stuck the pipe into it a little and it draws fine.

If I was doing it, I would have installed a cleanout at the bottom, ( I have to run an industrial vacuum to suck the crap out this summer, down the hole) OR, just run plain black pipe up the thing (all the way) and attached it, with a sheet metal or something else firewall/heat reflector air blocker fitted to the fireplace opening.

Either way it can be done and it works. The stove doesn't care where the draft is coming from, as long as it has a draft.

Ya, gotta love these old no insulation houses. And the way they are built, it is really hard to insulate them. IF we owned here I would do so though, one wall at a time. Looking at the whole thing seems impossible, a single wall at a time, starting with the north wall, not bad. And windows.

I was in the energy savings/efficiency retrofit and remodel biz before, your gains from proper insulation DO have an immediate comfort and near term dollars/energy use payback. I HIGHLY recommend doing it. Even if you have unlimited free wood now, what about when you are older/infirm/unable to deal with big quantities any more, but still need the heat? I have some friends now, both my age, early retired, poor guy six months into his pension, bam, stroke, now his old lady has to deal with the firewood gathering and whatnot and quite frankly,isn't up to the task. She can run their splitter, but not a saw and not their tractor. Now on limited funds they are having to heat, without the benefit of being able to do it cheaply. They own all these woods and have to buy wood now. Just when their income dropped to a pension from a decent salary.

Just something to consider. Proper insulation pays you back forever and will drmatically cut down your heating and cooling costs.. And in our state, monthly home energy costs are near year round, you have heating and cooling to consider. We really only have 2-3 months out of the year that fall into the tolerable with nothing level.

We just lost our big shade tree, and we have no AC, and I don't want it, so we will be finding out if this place is livable in the summer or not with just fans. AC with no insulation is the same as heat with no insulation, whatever you are burning has to burn constantly to maintain, and with AC that's the electric bill. Imagine an AC that never shuts off.....

 

[johnha]

Well, you can do whatever you want but that doesn't mean you should. Stoves and inserts generate temperatures that are higher and more prolonged than a fireplace.
Since you're asking for opinions here is mine:
First, have the chimney professionally cleaned and inspected by an experienced sweep. You can pick his/her brain about your plan and get a good idea what kind of shape the chimney is in before you proceed.

If you're a do it yourselfer, relining is not that expensive and if the chimney is in reasonable condition without a lot of bends not all that difficult. I relined my 24' chimney with 'flexible' stainless for about $300 five years ago. My B-I-L helped me out and it took about 3 hours to get the job done.

Good luck.