Professional, certified wood stove installation experts can be located in your local phone book's yellow pages or through home and garden shops. Proper installation of wood burning stoves requires expert knowledge of the safety regulations and inspections required to ensure the wood stove measures up to fire regulations and environmental standards.
Installing a wood stove could easily require a weekend of work and the hardest part is cutting the passageway for the wood stove pipe to go through the wall.
Place your stove far enough from the home's wall to prevent creating a fire hazard. It should also be placed on a fire-retardant sheet to prevent heat from damaging or causing fires on the floor of your home. This is especially important if you have a wooden floor. Pipes for your stove must be connected carefully and cleaned on a regular basis. Wood Stove chimneys should be properly insulated and contain a spark arrestor at the top of the chimney to prevent roof fires. You must also be concerned about preventing birds and other small wildlife from entering your wood stove's chimney. Creosote build-up is another concern.
Follow our easy 6 Step Process to make ease of your wood stove installation:
- Get Installation Area Prepared - You must space the stove a minimum of 36 inches away from any wall. Then you must measure the diameter of the stove pipe and multiply that number by three. This provides you with the necessary clearance needed for the pipe and the wall. A hole must be cut in the wall in order to place the stove pipe into the wall according to the calculated clearance.
- Positioning the Stove - Locate the best position for the stove so that it will provide the most heat. Professionals recommend placing the wood burning stove in the central portion of the house to provide the best radial heating as well as a safe distance from the walls of the home.
- Heat Protection - A heat shield crafted of copper, metal or another type of material, aids in relaxing some of the strict clearance requirements. The wood stove hearth protects the floor from fires and damage caused by sparks and embers. Some options include brick over metal, mortared brick, ceramic tile, and prefabricated hearths which are insulated.
- Create A Brick Wall
Build a brick wall 3 1/2 inches thick around the edges of the wall near the stove. This will prevent any heat damage to walls or possible fire hazards. Maintain at least 12 inches between the bricks and the actual structural wall. - Install Your Wood Burning Stove Pipe
Using a factory-made stove pipe, install it into the hole cut into the wall. You must leave a minimum of nine inches between the chimney cap outside and the exterior house wall. - The Chimney - Stacking of the piping on top of the wood stove is crucial for safety. You should:
- Place an end of the wood stove's pipe into the collar of the flue of the stove.
- A steel connecting sleeve is used to make the final connection from the exhaust pipe to the stove. As you begin to use your wood burning stove, check for any leaking air in the pipes.
- Add additional stovepipe to raise the pipe towards the room's ceiling.
- Add insulated chimney pipe support for connecting the pipe to the room ceiling.
- Using a factory-made stove pipe, install it into the hole cut into the wall. You must leave a minimum of nine inches between the chimney cap outside and the exterior house wall.
- ONLY use only insulated chimney pipe to pass floors until you reach the roof.
- Add required seals and flashing ensure there are no leaks around the piping.
- Add the storm collar piping for extra durability, safety andstrength.
- Complete the outdoor portion of the chimney by adding the chimney cap.
The future of wood stoves:
Wood stoves are basically a container made of metal for holding a fire. They are often manufactured from cast iron and may or may not be brick lined. They may be created of welded steel plates. All wood stoves have an inlet for air to be able to create combustion and a means for gases to exhaust. The exhaust gas is the smoke from the fire. This control permits a wood burning stone to heat far more effectively than an open-faced fireplace. Wood burning stoves manufactured during the 1970s and early part of the 1980s have efficiency rating ranging from 50% to 60%. The new government requirements put in effect in 1988 provide efficiency ratings from a minimum of 75% to as high as 90%. This means that up to 90% of the wood burned in the stove turns into heat.
Particulate emission concerns regarding dangerous gases and toxins contained in wood smoke caused changes in wood stove designs. The old fashioned wood stoves emitted up to 50 grams or more of particulate matter for each hour smoke was generated by the stove. The newer designs only emit about 5 grams of particulate matter per hour of use.
More and more people are installing eco-friendly alternative heat sources which require no chimney and a wood stove pipe is used. These heat sources, such as wood pellet burning stones, no not have any type of chimney for exhaust to exit. A wood burning stove pipe going through the wall is sufficient for exhaust of gases. It only requires a few hours to install a wood pipe stove properly and the job is quite easy to do.