Talk me out of it? Real steel hybrid.

[DrewInToledo]

So I looked for a hearth pad and found that they are incredibly overpriced which prompted me to create my own. Although I'm not finished, I have a total of 4 sheets of Durock which will satisfy the R value required for my stove, and I found a bunch of left over ceramic tile in the attic that the previous owner stuffed up there about 20 years ago.

I'm installing the stove along an exterior wall below the peak of a cathedral ceiling. (Photos to come.) Now, I'm trying to determine 2 options: 1.) Pipe for the interior; double or triple? 2.) side wall exit or through the roof?

1.) I'm told by the Woodstock soapstone company that when installing in a cathedral ceiling (maybe 12'), triple wall is preferred for better draft. I need to save money and would prefer to use double wall. Does anyone see problems with this?
2.) I can run the pipe straight up through the roof, but I'd rather not punch a hole in the roof. Does anyone see an issue with running pipe up near the peak of the ceiling and then out the wall and then back up past the roof line per code?

(The third obstacle is figuring out how I'm going to move this 650lb beast into my house. I don't even want to think about that yet!)

[matt walker]

I'd probably just suck it up and go straight up Drew. Fitting the 90°s and all that, and then still having to penetrate the eave, or going out around it, will probably end up costing just as much in fittings and extra flue. Going through the roof is scary to think about but is no big deal in practice. It will take you all of an hour or so, and you'll be glad you did. I don't have much of a recommendation re: triple vs. double, but I trust those guys. If they say it works better, I believe they are giving that advice with your best interests in mind.

[mannytheseacow]

Yeah, I'd go straight up too. I've done a couple of roof penetrations and they're no big deal.

Are they saying double and triple wall in the house? I'd go with conventional pipe to the ceiling to capture as much heat as you can and then convert to double wall from there. Can't say much about draft- you may want to follow their recommendations.

[DrewInToledo]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

My question was about double or triple inside the house. I have complete trust in Woodstock's recommendation, but I wasn't sure if they were recommending the triple wall as a blanket statement to insure good draft. A few months back when I started this thread, I called them and I specifically asked the question about using single or double wall to recover more heat, but I was told that I need triple because of the height inside. I'm somewhat stubborn, penny wise and dollar foolish, but I think I'm going with double wall to save cost.

I'm not extremely intimidated about going through the roof, so I'll give it a shot. Heck, if I goof up, it would probably still cost less to do it my self and have a roofer repair the roof than to have an installer do the work. I've seen lots of Youtube videos and it does look like a fairly simple process.

[matt walker]

Yeah, they are saying that solely for draft. These modern stoves are incredible, but they are a delicate balance just like our primitive heaters. They want no loss of heat in the stack that may impede or reduce draft, since it's the engine that makes them work the way they do. I know you guys understand that stuff, I'm just trying to shed some light on why they recommend the way they do. The stove itself does an incredible job of getting the heat into the room, and is designed to run basically right at the limit of how much heat can be pulled out and still draft correctly. So, they are trying to ensure that once the gasses pass the stove's collar there is no more loss and the draft stays strong. I was totally blown away in DC by how cool the exhaust is in those things when they are running. My RMH has warmer exhaust typically. It wouldn't take much stack cooling to make them stall, and of course atmospheric conditions are going to change where that point is day to day, so they are going to hedge their bets for solid performance in all conditions. Rightly so.

All that said, I doubt there will be a significant difference between the double and triple wall inside the house. I'd probably fudge it as well Drew.

[matt walker]

Oh, also, one of the interesting things I was made aware of in DC was the cfm of a modern box stove. Those things are barely moving any air at all, which is one reason why they do so well on the particulate count. There's almost no movement in the firebox, and that means that the stack is flowing extremely slowly. That exacerbates any stack losses, since there is a lot more dwell time in there than there is in most heaters we are used to.

[DrewInToledo]

Whoops! I was wrong. It's recommended double wall, not triple. I may have had you scratching your head. Sorry.. I will swing the $ for double.

So, I'm going to run double up to the ceiling and then through the roof!

[DrewInToledo]

Here's the area where I'm installing... kids games, bean bags, etc...



And another....



You'll see in the bottom photo where I'm building my hearth pad. I'm going to create a pad like I find online all over where the two front corners are cut off/beveled at 45°. The design is somewhat symmetrical... What you don't see is the shape of a letter "U". I used the large tiles in the middle cause I'm somewhat lazy and they consume lots of area. I think when the stove is sitting on the tile, it will look nice. So the smaller tiles come up around in front of the larger tiles. More to come later.... I assume standard, ceramic tile is acceptable as I haven't heard of a hearth rated tile and it's already been cooked in a kiln anyways..

[mannytheseacow]

That should work nicely, Drew. I made a pad under my old stove just like that and it worked well. Cost me all of about $5 too! It never got hot under there, but better safe than sorry. Nice to have a place to catch the popping embers that fall, too.

It's pretty cool to see a mix of things going on in the forum between your stove and thick string's pizza oven.

So when is the big day? When does your stove arrive. They're talking 38* here on Friday. 'course there's still plenty of warm weather to be had.

And do you have some wood lain away?

[DrewInToledo]

The stove is slated to arrive in the first week of October, but could be sooner. I really got to get cracking on that pad--I haven't cut any tiles or cemented anything in place yet.

Not much wood here yet... maybe a cord. This won't be a primary heat source but may evolve into that purpose. When the arctic blast came through last year, I took my people down to the local Lopi stove dealer and we stood in front of their top of the line model. The wood heat felt so darn great, that's what made me pull the trigger on the stove. The goal was to buy a stove that I don't need to throw tons of wood at.

Getting excited....