Two Flue Chimney Problems, New Hitzer 503 with stainless liner, need some good sound opinions.

[amswor]

I'm no stranger to wood heat. I currently heat two homes with wood.

I just installed a new Hitzer 503C Wood/Coal insert into a brick masonry fireplace that was built in the 1950's. The chimney is approx 22 feet from hearth to the top of the flue, with a dog leg inside of it to get around the fireplace in the room directly above. The masonry in this chimney was at best in poor condition. The upstairs fireplace is complety burned out and un-useable due to overburn by squatters who occupied this house while it was in forclosure before my purchase/rennovation.

OK
I paid the HITZER dealer Buck Stove & Fireplace from Monaca Pennsylvania to transport the stove here, and to pull in the new stainless flue liner. I'm happy with the installtion and the job, with one or two minor issues. I wish the top of the the flue around the liner had been sealed with the masonry/foam insulation product to fully seal any draft that could get pulled around the stainless liner. However, I did get to fully inspect what was done while it was being done and I'm very satisfied except for that point.

So we fire up the stove for the first time and I know I'm gonna get some fumes off the paint while it cures/burns a little bit. No big deal! I also know I'm gonna get some smell from the coating burning off the stainless liner.

WHAT I'm HAVING PROBLEMS WITH THOUGH... is the complete other fireplace and flue. The smoke being made by the burnoff of the paint, and the burn off of the coating, that is trapped between my new stainless liner and my old masonry is finding a crack to get through into the other flue for the other fireplace and is leaking out into the room above.

WILL THIS EVENTUALLY STOP??

IF NOT WHAT DO I DO?

DO I HAVE ANY ISSUES WITH HAVING THE LINERS RUN UP THROUGH OLD CRACKED MASONRY??

DID THIS FLUE LINER INSTALLER DO THE JOB RIGHT?

EVENTUALLY I WANT TO PUT AN INEXPENSIVE OCCASIONAL BURNER or A modern comtemporary GAS vented unit into the upstairs fireplace. When I do this, and I seal up the upstairs unit into the opening... do I have any concearns about the fact the two masonry chimneys are in such bad shape??

Thanks for the reply's fellas!!

 

[begreen]

Welcome to the forums amswor. First thing to do is to check the flue collar and see if the installer used a sealant there. If so, can you describe it? Inexperienced installers sometimes use RTV silicone which is inappropriate for this application. It will smoke at high temps until it bakes to a crisp.

If it is the stove paint, this will get better. Before the next fire I would prevent the next burn from filling up the chimney cavity by getting some Roxul from the local big box store like Lowes. Remove the insert surroung. Then stuff above the damper area around the liner completely with the Roxul mineral wool. Pack it in, but don't dent the liner.

Leave the surround off, open up the windows (if you have a fan that you can place near or in a close by window blowing out, all the better. If you have a second small fan, turn it on low and point it at the fireplace cavity. Now light the stove and get it up to about 500F to cure the paint.

As always, pictures are welcome and may aid in our observations.

 

[amswor]

That is sound advice! I have continued to fire the thing, in 1 hour intervals 4-5 times a day just to heat it up slowly since they installed it just to let the paint try and have its best possible oppotunity to cure. The smoking has gone down significantly.

I wont be able to wrap around the new stainless flue liner because I cant reach up to where it actually enters into a cavity where it could be wrapped. The smoke hood masonry cavity above the damper (unsure of proper term) is like big enough to be an extra room in my house. You can stand up in there and move around etc!

If any of you use TWITTER, there are pics there @amswor

 

[begreen]

You are past the break in phase. Take it up to 500 to cure the paint.

Sorry, no twitter in our house and I suspect there never will be.

 

[mhrischuk]

So I guess you have two chimneys exiting the top? If so, there could be some downdraft from your new chimney down into the other caused by the upper one being cold and pressure variations in the house. I would just burn away and see if it finally goes away. You should at minimum stuff the smoke chamber with rock wool. That should keep the fumes out of the chimney space and help you keep the heat from your stove in the house.

As far as the existing masonry chimneys being in bad shape... I hope they are structurally good. That is something you would have inspected and repaired before putting liners in.

 

[amswor]

Bad Shape as in the interior bricks and origional liners are either crumbling or not lining up properly. I cleaned tons of bad stuff out. Structurally though, the chimney is completly encased in concrete block and exterior face brick, no structural issues to speak of.

I origionally suspected down draft as the hearth to chimney top distance on the upstairs fireplace is just 14 feet. We stuffed the top of the upstairs chimney with rock wool and covered it with a tin cover plate, the kind you sit a brick on top of. THAT ACTUALLY MADE THE SMOKE PROBLEM WORSE!! so that's how I figured it's the smoke inside the airspace between the liner and the masonry!

 

[amswor]

This flue problem is really starting to PISS ME off and the new stove and liner have been in for less than a week.

I hired a professional do this install for me so that it got done right, and now I'm questioning weather or not there was extra/other work needed to make this right prior to the installation being done.


I'm getting smoke/smell/fumes from inbetween the new liner and the old masonry, that is leaking through the cracks in the old masonry, into the other flue/chimney, and coming out of the upstairs fireplace and back into my home.


Tomorrow, I'm going to cut a plywood blocker panel, for in the opening of the upstairs fireplace. I'm going to use a few tapcon's to mount a couple of 2x4's to the walls of the upstairs fireplace to screw the plywood blocker too. I'm going to put pipe insulation around the 4 sides of the blocker panel to seal it up or use silicon caulking. Then I'm gonna just sit the glass fireplace doors back in front of the plywood to hide it, and see if that keeps the smoke/smell from coming into the house.

Suggestions fellas??

 

[amswor]

Remove or dont remove he cap on top of the flue for the firepalce I'm not using?? I placed a crappy tin sheet cap and some rockwoold insulation in the top of that flue to seal it off! Should I let it vent so that any smoke/fumes that get into that chimney have a place to escape?

 

[begreen]

I would find the real problem first. If this is a botched install with a failure or a torn liner around the dogleg, then the cap on the unused fireplace is telling you something important. If the integrity of the new liner was perfect (as it should be) then there should be absolutely no leakage to the other flue.

 

[amswor]

I am very convinced, since the smoke/smell/problem keeps getting better with each short 1-2hr burn I've run through the thing this week that the problem was the fumes/paint/coating/dirtdust inside that is trapped between the new liner and the old masonry. The smoke hood in this thing was big enough for a large male to stand up and turn around normally... so there was alot of space in there to manuver! I dont think that the liner got torn. I was present for the entire install, and I was able to look/inspect the manuver around the dog leg as it was done. We did have to ovalize the duct for about 8 feet so make it through the dog leg, but other than a small brick ledge or misaligned flue tile there was no hangups with sliding the liner down in.

I'm going to seal up the upstairs opening today with a piece of plywood, cut very tight to fight, with pipe insulation placed around its edge to hold it in place! then place the ugly ass glass/black/gold fireplace doors back in front of it until I get around to deailing with it's reconditioning/restoration/insert or whatever I decided to do there!

I'm just worried that I'm missing something?? I'm ready now to start burning 24-7 in this stove, and since I'm burning wood in it, I cant have any breaches in that stainless liner because it will be a huge creosote/chimney fire risk....

Anyhone have any more suggestions I'm all ears or eyes!!

 

[begreen]

I'm wondering if there is still accumulation at the dogleg. Did they do a very thorough cleaning of this flue before installing the liner?