New guy with venting questions.

I am currently looking to purchase a hitzer 50-93 for my home in Maine and have a venting question. Currently in my chimney I have a oil furnace venting into one side and a oil water heater venting into the other side. When I bought the place 10 years ago there was a wood stove connected that also shared the same hole as the oil water heater. I used it that way for a year and have since disconnected the wood stove. My question is can I connect the coal stove to where the wood stove used to be and use a y pipe to connect to the chimney? Don't plan on using the oil furnace, but the oil water heater will still be used. Also is $1725 for the hitzer a good price? That is without the blower. Oil prices up here are currently $3.60 a gallon and it is killing me.

If I were you I would figure out something else as far as a chimney goes, not cool to have all those units in one chimney. If you get the 50 93 do yourself a favor and get it with the blower, will heat your house much better. Mine is a awsome heat machine. The price seems to be inline for a non blower unit,

A few options, Are there 2 separate flues in your chimney? or just just 2 openings into the same hole?
if the appliances are the same fuel type, they can use the same flue pipe. Are they power vented at all? they could be redirected out a side wall if possible. Then you could use the separate flue if you combine them properly into one, and use the other for the coal stove.

It's just one flue with two openings into it. Nothing is power vented. I just figured if the wood stove shared the same hole with the oil water heater for years, I could just put the coal stove there.

The bottom line is that it is against code to vent a solid fuel appliance into the same flue as an oil fired appliance. If that is a deal breaker for you, read no farther. If you acknowledge that the code was written for wood-fired appliances and not anthracite, it is just a matter of getting things hooked up so each appliance has properly pitched pipes and draft.

This topic has come up quite a few times over the last couple years. Here is one of the most recent discussions: Bummer Oil unit and Coal same flue

What size chimney is it?

That is what I were wondering about the flue itself. Per the post above, Per Code, different fuels should not share the same chimney.

I would be more concerned with the water heater flue being fed into an oversize chimney than a coal unit sharing a chimney, but that is just me. Aren't they usually a smaller flue, like 4"? I would think that size would have a hard time drafting up a 8" block masonry chimney. If the oil burner is firing at the same time then it probably would be enough temp differential to draft, but there's no guarantee it would be running.

Of course, I could be off base and the water heater flue is actually 6" and it is pumping out the exhaust enough to draft in a 8x8 chimney, but I am used to my propane unit with the small flue pipe.

Can someone address the venting of The YankeeBoiler http://www.marathonheaterco.com/files/Y ... er_New.pdf
or the Harman furnace http://www.harmanstoves.com/Products/SF ... rnace.aspx.

These are both wood coal and oil combination units with one flue outlet, if there needs to be one flue for one fuel how would you install?
Bob

w-motor wrote:Can someone address the venting of The YankeeBoiler http://www.marathonheaterco.com/files/Y ... er_New.pdf
or the Harman furnace http://www.harmanstoves.com/Products/SF ... rnace.aspx.

These are both wood coal and oil combination units with one flue outlet, if there needs to be one flue for one fuel how would you install?
Bob

Even with a multi-fuel appliance you aren't burning multiple fuels at the same time. So, venting a multi-fuel appliance into one flue is code compliant since you will only be burning one fuel at a time.

In the case of having two appliances burning two different fuels in the same flue that is not code complaint because you run the risk of having both appliances running at the same time. In the OP's case even if he disconnected the oil furnace and left the oil hot water heater he'd still have two fuels one pipe. He'd have coal & oil. When before it was one flue, one fuel and two appliances.

I'm On Fire wrote:In the case of having two appliances burning two different fuels in the same flue that is not code complaint because you run the risk of having both appliances running at the same time.

Code issue aside, what is the risk of having the two appliances running if the chimney is sized to handle both?

None to my knowledge. Just another money maker for somebody or other.

Yeah, i just looked thrrough some NFPA documents myself and I too can't find the "Why" I have only found that it is not allowed per code. I'm sure there are many reasons why, but I cant give you a definitive reason.

freetown fred wrote:None to my knowledge. Just another money maker for somebody or other.

None to my knowledge either, I just wondered if IOF was referring to something I hadn't run across.

I'm On Fire wrote:Yeah, i just looked thrrough some NFPA documents myself and I too can't find the "Why" I have only found that it is not allowed per code. I'm sure there are many reasons why, but I cant give you a definitive reason.

I asked a long-time code office about it once. He said it came about after the early 70's oil crisis when everyone added wood stoves/boilers to their existing chimneys. When a wood-burning appliance is connected to the same flue as an oil or gas appliance, the flue temps tend to be lower from the additional air pulled through the oil/gas unit's draft control. That increases creosote formation...and when there is a chimney fire, the draft control opens and feeds lots of air to the chimney fire. Many homes were burned down from this, and many more had the chimneys damaged or destroyed.

Thankfully anthracite doesn't create creosote. I have run coal stoves vented into the same flue as an oil boiler, same with EFM stokers and I know of a Keystoker boiler hooked up that way as well. All draft fine and operate fine, the only issue is code-compliance.

one reason i can think of for sure...
creosote chimney fire being fed air through an oil burner baro damper...not an issue with coal

maybe a second reason??
solid fuel appliance connected a floor above the oil burner and the exhaust comes out the solid fuel appliance rather than the top of the chimney?