Wood stove pipe size VS draft

   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #1  

tomplum

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My BIL and I were talking over Thanksgiving about him replacing his wood stove. They have an A frame house with a too big wood stove and an 8" pipe. It goes up 3 sections then through ~6' of double wall stainless and then through the roof. So a new stove will be a 6" flue. What is normally done to have a proper draft? Pull the whole works and run the 6" all the way up or if it is reduced @ the double wall or?
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #2  
The "right" way to do it would be to change it all out to 6". However, I have a small wood stove with a 6" connection that I then adapt to 8" and it goes into an even larger masonry chimney and it works fine.

Stove3.JPG
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #3  
One thing you have to watch for, is condensation if the pipe is too large. The exhaust can cool too much and reach the point where moisture condenses out.

When I was doing forestry work, the owner had a house built and thought he was doing a great thing by upsizing his chimney flue. He had a wood fired furnace in the basement and he was constantly fighting moisture when he wasn't firing hard. The moisture would run out all over the basement floor.
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #4  
One thing you have to watch for, is condensation if the pipe is too large. The exhaust can cool too much and reach the point where moisture condenses out.

When I was doing forestry work, the owner had a house built and thought he was doing a great thing by upsizing his chimney flue. He had a wood fired furnace in the basement and he was constantly fighting moisture when he wasn't firing hard. The moisture would run out all over the basement floor.
People who burn wet wood should not burn wood.
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #5  
People who burn wet wood should not burn wood.
It's not just associated with wet wood. Even "dry" wood (<20%) has moisture.

With his scenario, you could see the changes in condensing follow barometric pressure changes. Or, if he had the main house fireplace burning he didn't have the issue, because they had side by side flues in the same chimney and would be just enough to get some added heat.
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #6  
Most modern (i.e. EPA) stoves use 6". Double wall if it's exposed to the interior of the house, double wall insulated if it runs through a chase. Only the largest ones use 8". You need a really big space for one of those.

Like gsganzer posted, the current thinking is to keep the exhaust hot all the way through. Modern stoves expect it.

The modern EPA stoves not only burn cleaner but get more BTUs from the same load of wood. The only problem is that they don't deal with wet wood as well as older non EPA stoves.
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Hopefully if the flue is supposed to be 6" all the way up, it will be easy to deal with the roof flashing.
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #9  
Hopefully if the flue is supposed to be 6" all the way up, it will be easy to deal with the roof flashing.
I would lower the new 6'' pipe inside the 8'' put a finishing plate to seal it all... this plate goes in the 8'' and the 6'' goes through no changes needed on the roof...

1764368476162.png



or this

1764368585302.png
 
   / Wood stove pipe size VS draft #10  
I'd keep the "too big" stove and just make smaller fires or be hot. Adding some thermal mass somehow might help the hot/cold of a big stove. I had a big stove in my cabin in Oregon (years ago). It was perfect at full chooch when it was -10 outside. But you had to keep the fires small and short if you just wanted to take the chill down a knotch on a rainy morning. I put a bunch of brick around it for thermal mass. I prefer more short hot fires rather than a constant slow simmering fire. Keeps the chimney clean.

I should make a thread about my stove dilemma as not to derail the OP here.
 

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