New to This: Buying a house with a ducted wood stove. Process to convert to pellet stove?

[FirepotPete]

mikebookpro

What you have is an old vent system from before forced air furnaces where installed. Open venting from one story to another is considered a major fire hazard today.Those old systems were called among other things a gravity fed heat, although it was really just the heat rising that warmed the above floors. That's why you will probably notice the vents in the floor are staggered, that helped to stir the warm/cold air instead of just going straight up.

The room you have that wood stove in is IMO way to small just for maintenance of a pellet stove but also safety.

You would be better off considering running a direct pel-vent out of the house and blocking up that old vent system so there is no open air from one floor to the other.

Just my opinion, someone else may have a better idea.

Good luck and let us know what you figure out. Or ask more questions, OK?

 

[maple1]

I am rather shocked the inspector thought it was OK.

But in reality his opinion doesn't matter as much as the opinion of your insurer. If your insurer inspects it & says it's OK & they will insure it - that's the main hump. But I have to say - I think if my insurance guy OKd that, I think I would still get rid of it anyway. I couldn't sleep at night with a fire going in that.

 

[mikebookpro]

mikebookpro

What you have is an old vent system from before forced air furnaces where installed. Open venting from one story to another is considered a major fire hazard today.Those old systems were called among other things a gravity fed heat, although it was really just the heat rising that warmed the above floors. That's why you will probably notice the vents in the floor are staggered, that helped to stir the warm/cold air instead of just going straight up.

The room you have that wood stove in is IMO way to small just for maintenance of a pellet stove but also safety.

You would be better off considering running a direct pel-vent out of the house and blocking up that old vent system so there is no open air from one floor to the other.

Just my opinion, someone else may have a better idea.

Good luck and let us know what you figure out. Or ask more questions, OK?

Thank you for this information. I've passed it on to my agent.

 

[Lake Girl]

How old is the house? I'm thinking it may be a mix of an old gravity feed system that FirepotPete mentioned and additional ducting but that would depend on the age of the house. The pics of the floor joists would suggest newer construction (50s-60s) ... The vent in the ceiling could be a cold air return or are there a series of vents on the second floor?

How is that stove vented out? Into a chimney? Did you get a chance to check out the chimney for the fireplace with the inspector? I would suggest that it may be time to invest in having a chimney sweep take a look at it all... Is your offer contingent on this inspection? Deficiencies found change the price tag?

Did you get pictures of the fireplace on the main floor? Our home is around the same square footage with the second floor needing augmentation (electric). Our pellet stove in the living room is rated as 48,000 BTU. Part of our air movement issue is lack of central stairway to circulate heat. Crawl space and very cold winters are contributing factors.

Not sure what your budget would be to remedy the situation. I know for our house, if there was enough height in the crawl space, a pellet boiler would be there...

PS. The Durarock does not appear to be sealed which will reduce your fire rating value (exposing wood framing members at those joints).