OAK plumbed to the attic question...

[habsfan]

I have a Harmon XXV running in the basement. See attached pic. It's basically in the middle of the house. It has the stove pipe accessory and exhausts out to an existing chimney. I'm currently not using an OAK but would like to. I was thinking of plumbing 3" pvc pipe down from the attic, then snake flexible piping out the back of the stove and around to the right and through the wall where on the other side that I have access to connect it to the PVC pipe that pulls fresh air form the attic. The attic has full length soffit vents on both sides of the house and hase a full length ridge vent. Any reason why I couldn't do this?

 

[crausch]

My concern would be insulation (fiberglass) dust getting into the stove. Not sure if this could harm anything. Probably not a probalem in the winter though.

I just know that sometimes in my attic the fiberglass dust in the air makes it difficult to breath.

[Updated a few minutes later]
Actually, the more I thought about this, it is probably not a problem since even if you went straight out a wall, there is no garantee that the air drawn in is pure of dust or particles.

 

[peirhead]

I have seen numerous posts suggesting this is wrong however never have I seen a good reason! The only reason I can think of why not to would be the possibility of negative air pressure in the attic (near where your OAK inlet is) under certain wind conditions... if that happened it could cause a bit of vacuum on the stove...I can't see this being any different that normal wind pressures around the outside of the house though....Unless there is a Code stipulation, or something specific in the manufacturers manual than I 'd try it.

 

[hossthehermit]

Don't know about Harman, St. Croix says " any unheated space". However, they also say "avoid long runs". Guess my concern would be how far you have to run the pipe, may need to upsize.
BUT, that's just my opinion.

 

[Lobstah]

Yeah...I'd be worried about running an OAK over distance, but it's probably ok. My kit is 1.5"...so going to 3" should get you some distance...but it'd really suck if you found out you really needed 4?...

I usually tend to err on the side of caution, so I'd run 4" dryer vent.

Does it HAVE to go to the attic?

Jim