Routing outside air intake to attic.

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RistoRocket

New Member
Nov 17, 2020
1
Arizona
I am replacing an old wood burning stove with a pellet stove. I would like to keep it in the same location in my single level house. Unfortunately, it is not near an exterior wall. Is it safe to route the outside air pipe to my attic as long as its well above the insulation and has proper mesh to prevent infiltration by critters? The attic is very airy. I'm located at 7000ft elevation if that makes a difference. Thanks for any responses!
 
The risk is that the intake pipe will become a better chimney than your chimney if the power goes out. They make a coxial chimney that is about the same size as a 6” pipe that has intake preheated and exhaust in one safe pipe.
 
How big is the intake air pipe? On mine, it's about 1-7/8" or 2" OD, so I got the local muffler/exhaust pipe man to bend me some aluminum clad steel exhaust pipe to plumb my cold outside air intake, clamped screen wire over the squirrel end. Painted it too. Hook to stove with section of radiator hose. It's pretty horizontal in my case, but I doubt be a problem to plumb up & out with the steel exhaust tube? When my power goes, the auger & fans stop and soon the fire is out. I wouldn't think to terminate it in an attic, but then I wonder why not if the attic is a cold one with vents on the end in the gables? For my first few years, I didn't have a outside cold air pipe at all, it just used room air.

Now for exhaust, I use Pellet Stove 3" vent.