New Guy Has Questions???

mikew wrote: 1. If this is a coal burner, can I put an 8" pipe from the stove thru the flue and up to the second tile in the chimney and be safe? the fireplace has never been used its terracota pipe lined and I burnt some wood for about 3 weeks in the stove and I will pull it out and clean the chimney before installing the pipe

I was told that to burn wood I would need to reline the whole chimney with stainless and I don't want to do that

I was told the same thing when I hooked up my wood stove a few years ago, "you need a SS liner to use a wood stove/insert in a conventional chimmney". Local guys could only cite code references for it, no other reasons.

After some research, the main reason for those statements is that the size of the flue in a conventional fireplace has such a large volume that it can be hard to get good draft with a wood stove. (stove/insert used interchangably). Plus with all that flue volume to heat you'll likely end up with more creosote build up without a liner.

You DO need to fabricate a baffle to positivly seal off the chimney from the inside of the house. CO kills, you won't know until it's too late. Allowing warm room air to escape up chimney defeats the purpose of an enclosed fire too. I've attached a pic of mine (made from heavy steel sheet taken from a scrapped electrical enclosure)

mikew wrote: 2. I read that coal burns clean with no creosote so shouldn't a flew pipe up to the 2nd tile work without chance of fire in the chimney?

Can't speak about coal (I've only been burning coal for 2 weeks, on a different flue in my house) but for the wood stove I ran 6" black pipe to within 6 inches of the top of the flue. It's not "code" but even when I ran wood 24x7 on not so perfectly seasoned wood there was less than a handful of creosote when I brushed it monthly. I've pulled the sleeve from the chimney every year and have yet to see signs of overheating or weakness.

My wood stove is a secondary burn stove (Jotul F500) so emissions are fairly clean as it is. If that insert is an older smoke dragon you might have more creosote issues.

Tho since coal started burning in the basement it's only been one fire a day in the wood stove.