Coalpail.com Forum

I have an attached two car garage in which I want to install a wood furnace. I purchased a new Hearth Century wood stove today. I realize you are not supposed to install a wood stove in a garage, but my plan is to turn the garage into a game room or something like that. The garage walls are constructed of cement blocks. My plans are to sit the stove on the opposite side of the two entry doors. I want to run the flu through the block wall and up. I estimated the distance from the top of the stove to the roof line is about 12 feet or so. I found a diagram of a complete wood stove chimney on this forum but couldn’t get it to enlarge or print off correctly. My question is this. What will I need, single or double walled pipe? I don't think I have the money to have a regular chimney built so I am hoping this will work out. My next plan is to cut holes for a register in each room to heat that side of the house. I have attached a photo of the garage in hopes this helps. Oh, by the way. The garage will be cleaned and the bass boat moved out. The stove will be sitting to the left of the refrigerator which will be moved as well.

Can anyone help?

Hi Bryan, from the looks of the pictures with the support beam and all this is under the house, kind of like a walk out basement. If that is true you should be fine installing a stove as long as you remove the hazards such as stored flammables and other items which could cause a fire. I would definitely not park any fueled motor vehicles in there after installing the stove, since it is part of the house IMO better safe than sorry.

Whatever you use it needs to be stainless, outside the house it is better to use double or triple walled pipe to prevent the flue temp to be reduced by the outside cold and possibly hurting your draft. I have virtually no experience with actually installing a SS chimney, but I can say that based on seeing what other folks have done you need to make sure you go high enough to prevent the draft from being effected by the wind. I believe the rule of thumb is the top should be no closer than 10' if you draw a line over to the roof perpendicular to the pipe.

Hope this helps a little.

I would recommend the double wall chimney pipe once it passes through the wall. You are going to need about 20' minimum above the appliance. Make sure the thimble is pitched upward toward the outside wall about 1/4" per foot.

You may want to look at a masonry chimney, if you can do the work yourself it may be cheaper and last a lot longer. Precast square block (about $16 1 1/2') and terra cotta chimney tile ($20 per 2') is not that expensive and will last forever. About $300 plus the cement and footing. I paid about $700+ for a bunch of S/S double wall for the garage's oil burning furnace and I think that was about 10-12'.

There is a significant slowdown in house construction, so the masons are slow too..I'm sure you can find a mason who will be glad to put up a chimney for you. I'd get several quotes for a Masonry chimney as well as for a SS chimney... I laid up my own masonry chimney, it was a bit of work, but less money than a SS one and will last forever.

If you bought a furnace, then use ducting to move the heated air, and use return ducting to reheat the previously heated returned air again... you don't want to pull cold air from your game room to heat and push into your house... You will not be very happy with the warmth in the cement block room untill you insulate the walls, and do what you can to retain heat in that room... either remove the rollup garage door and wall in the opening, or you will be heating the neighborhood, not your game room.

Can you post a photo of the furnace you purchased?? I hope it isn't a US Stove product,... They often require a LOT of learning and compromise to burn coal well.

There are several threads on moving hot air around on this forum... I'm sure you can find them.

Hope this helps... greg L

Be real careful putting a wood stove in a garage. I just picked up a motorcycle for salvage that was burned. Somehow gas or oil leaked out of something and it burned the garage down. Off topic but it sucked for the guy, his homeowners didn't cover the motorcycle and he didn't have it registered so no comp. coverage on it either. What a way to lose $5,000.

Are you aware that there are wood stove direct vent kits? My friend bought one for a used stove he got and it works fine. There is a spec for the vertical run in a basement of 2' above grade. You may not need to go that high. The pipe isn't cheap, but then going up 15' isn't either. Stainless steel is $$$. The direct vent doesn't detract form your home either.

Is there a Direct Vent for a Hearth Century Stove available?

Bryan

Thechap wrote:Is there a Direct Vent for a Hearth Century Stove available?

Bryan

Is it this one or one like it if so keep looking Not a very well made unit
Much Better one out there Also why wood and not coal
You are in PA should not have a Problem getting Coal

**Broken Link(s) Removed**

Wood is a very primitive fuel and dangerous .
If the stove is like the one in the link above I would steer clear, I looked at one of these and it is about the cheapest made piece of crap I have seen in awhile it would be best served to house propane logs .

Agree with Coal Berner the best advice you will get on an Anthracite Forum is to Burn Coal

Well to start off with I already purchased the Hearth Century Stove and is still on the pallet sitting in the garage. I would hate to think the stove is junk!! I was trying to cut down on my coal consumption and wanted to burn wood in this stove inside the garage. I am currently using a Harman Mark III to heat the upstairs and am burning strictly coal in that stove. I am getting my firewood for free and thats why I wanted a wood stove and Lowe's had them basically at half price. I had already cut about three cords of wood and tried burning the wood in the Harman but the wood burnt too hot.

HELP?

Thanks,

Bryan

Thechap wrote:Well to start off with I already purchased the Hearth Century Stove and is still on the pallet sitting in the garage. I would hate to think the stove is junk!! I was trying to cut down on my coal consumption and wanted to burn wood in this stove inside the garage. I am currently using a Harman Mark III to heat the upstairs and am burning strictly coal in that stove. I am getting my firewood for free and thats why I wanted a wood stove and Lowe's had them basically at half price. I had already cut about three cords of wood and tried burning the wood in the Harman but the wood burnt too hot.

HELP?

Thanks,

Bryan

Ya got all kinda a things working against ya the first being the safety issue which everybody from forum members to code guys will point to first, but you choose to ignore this and it's a big one, next it is a really poorly made stove sometimes cheap is just that, next you do not have a proper chimney and want help getting around this issue too . Time to take a step back and look if this is really a good idea I would hate to think one night while watching the news your one of the people I see with a smoldering foundation lamenting all the things that were lost in the fire .

I know it's not what you want to hear but the whole scenario sounds too risky

spend the money to put up a decent chimney, to not do so could cause a housefire that your insurance might not want to cover due to an illegal installation; i'm normally not a "code nazi" but when a half assed installation could actuall cost you a house or more, it's foolish to not at least be somewhat safe.

Decided not to use the stove. Anyone in the market for a new cheaply made stove? Thanks for everyones input!!

Bryan

Thechap wrote:Decided not to use the stove. Anyone in the market for a new cheaply made stove? Thanks for everyones input!!

Bryan

Good choice. If you want to burn up all that wood you split you can find a lot of used wood stoves out there that are well made and will burn safely. The UL label on the stove is a must. I'm sure the stove you bought is UL listed, but the safer the better.
The chimney is very important when burning wood due to higher temperatures and creosote build-up.
There's no reason you can not do this project, but just do it right the first time and you can go to sleep at night not worrying about something bad happening.

I looked at some of the stoves at the Home Depot, made by New England Stove Works and I was not impressed. I'm sure you can't get a lot of good information there either. The best place to buy a new stove is from the independent dealers, even then it's a toss-up about knowledge regarding the products.